The Chains of Fate: Exiles of the Heart
by Chant99
Summary: The 2nd installment to my alternate universe "Shattered Soul" time line series following Chiana and the exassassin, Berret after events in my AU version of the PKWs. New Chapters 7 to 11 now up, Feb 24, 2009. Five chapter update!
1. Forward

**THE FARSCAPE EPIC RPG UNIVERSE: NEW CHARACTERS & SETTING.**

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** This story, and others, were written based on the characters from my Farscape RPG group. So far I've gotten some very nice reviews here on the fan-fic stories based on the RPG characters and Farscape AU story lines, so I'll continue to post them as long as people enjoy reading them. But first I need to explain a bit about our RPG so you can follow the extra characters and the alternate Farscape universe(s) we have going.

The name of the original group on Yahoo is "**Farscape Epic RPG**", but it was hijacked by a hacker and Yahoo was less than helpful with attempting to regain control, so the regular members moved to a new group that is now called: "**The Alliance Wars**" and it can also be found on Yahoo groups for those who wish to look us up.

The game is still based in an alternate Farscape universe that diverges from the shows timeline somewhere after Talyn's birth but before the Chiana/D'argo relationship.

The **Jared Berret** character here is basically the same **Shrike 457** character from the **"Fallen Angel"** series posted here, although the original meeting between Chiana and the Shrike took place in a different way in the game. Berret is eventually discovered to have been a human abducted from Earth at some point by a mysterious race of slavers who have the ability to use wormholes to travel. He ends up being sold to the Scarran Black Syndicate and because he was apparently so bothersome as a slave, he was used as an experimental subject for illegal Peacekeeper microbe enhancement technology the Syndicate obtained. Surprisingly, Berret survives the experiment were most other Sebacean subjects died immediately or lasted barely a cycle mostly as a raving mad men or women, which is why the Peacekeepers abandoned the project that was suppose to create a breed of super soldier for their ranks. The Syndicate believes Berret to be another Sebacean, as the slavers never elaborated on where they acquired him in the first place, and oddly enough, its his rather deficient Earth human physiology that lets him adapt to the microbe augmentation and survive.

Berret is restrained under an electronic control collar locked around his neck. The microcomputer inside the collar links itself directly to its subject's nervous system to deliver instructions, enforce behavior patterns, and suppress it's wearer's personality… and in some cases, wiping that personality out totally. Berret is one of the unlucky ones; the double blows of microbe augmentation and the collar completely wipe away all of his memories and who he was before being captured. He is given the designation – Shrike Enforcer 457 – in the Black Syndicate High House of Arckatius, and for ten Earth years or cycles, he serves as a brutal assassin for the organization. Garbed in dark gunmetal armor and black cloak of the Shrike, Berret uses the strange brace blades they arm him with to leave an unknown body count behind him during his enforced service.

Freedom finally comes to him at the hands of a certain young Nebari thief… and then the real adventure begins. (The _**Jared Berret / Shrike 457**_ character belongs to **Chant99**.)

**The other new characters in this story line are original player characters.**

**Andar Murdough** - is a Sebacean teacher from a forgotten and lost colony. Andar's people have lost so much knowledge over the cycles that space flight is considered science fiction. Andar is abducted by aliens who experiment on his brain trying to increase intelligence in 'lesser' species. The project works much better then they thought, and Andar steals a shuttle and eventually finds his way to Moya. Andar becomes a sponge for any sort of knowledge and begins to go through Moya's data banks learning everything he can. He often sees machines or gadgets in his mind and will disappear for days into his workshop to build them. (The _**Andar**_ character belongs to **Murdough2000**.)

**Malika Phatan** - is a 125-year-old Delvian teenager. After spending a number of cycles as a Peacekeeper slave aboard a command carrier, she and her mother escape in a Prowler, but at the cost of the life of a young PK officer who fell in love and secretly married Malika. After a time of running and hiding, the pair run into a Syndicate Shrike and the meeting leaves young Malika with an intense hatred and distrust for the Enforcers when the assassin kills a client Malika took a job as a bodyguard for, and almost kills her and her mother in the process. Sometime after that, Malika's mother is tragically killed, leaving the girl alone. She hears a story about an escaped Leviathan with a Delvian Pa'u aboard and sets out to find the living ship with the hopes of fulfilling her mother's dream of her becoming a Pa'u. She finds Moya and Zhaan (who is alive in our game) and the older Delvian agrees to take her in. However, now there is a Shrike aboard Moya as Chiana's companion, and she is having a hard time controlling the tendencies for violence she developed during the hard life she lived on the run from the Peacekeepers. Through young, Malika is also a skilled healer and thanks to her parents, an educated student of exobiology. She sets up a small lab on one of Moya's lower tiers, mostly to hide out from having to be around Berret ... and possibly Andar. Both Andar and Malika feel an attraction to each other, but the Delvian isn't sure she wants to open her heart to another after what happened to her Peacekeeper husband. (The _**Malika**_ character belongs to **Lonegirl189**.)

**Sean Crichton** - 70 years after the disappearance of astronaut John Crichton, his descendant Sean uses John and DK's research to construct the Wanderer module. In an attempt to prove that his ancestor's theories were sound, Sean repeats the slingshot effect and is also thrown halfway across the universe only with a slightly different result. The Wanderer module is somehow draw backward in time to the Farscape module's location and is expelled from a wormhole near Moya. Sean finds himself stun to be surrounded by a group of aliens and suddenly faced with a family legend. (Some early stories take place before Sean's arrival, while at the time of some later stories, Sean has used a wormhole to return to Earth, carrying advanced technology with him in an attempt to get his homeworld ready for the threats that face them. Using a device built by Andar, Sean was also shot forward to his own time, though no one has any way of knowing if the younger Crichton has made it safely.) (The _**Sean Crichton**_ character belongs to **Marspsi12**.)

**ADDITIONAL CHARACTERS & TERMS:** Created by Chant99 for the series. (Note: The crews' children appear in different stories in the **"Future Tense"** series from the ages of 4 to in their 20's.)

**Andrea (Sun Crichton):** Ages 8 & 27, oldest daughter of Aeryn Sun and John Crichton. Working now with Rygel and the alliance to form pacts with other races in the Territories, Andrea also has a secret she's keeping from her parents.

**Missy (Melissa Sun Crichton):** Ages 6 & 25, youngest daughter of Aeryn Sun and John Crichton. Wife of Jalen and mother of Terralyn

**Jalen ('Len ):** Ages 8 & 27, son of Chiana and Jared Berret. Husband of Missy Sun Crichton and father of Terralyn

**Chulee ('Lee):** Ages 6 & 25, daughter of Chiana and Jared Berret.

**Terralyn: ('Alyn)** Age 4, daughter of Missy Sun Crichton and Jalen. Granddaughter of John Crichton, Aeryn Sun, Chiana, and Jared Berret.

**Joban Rickler**: First Sergeant of the 1st Elite Hynerian Guard at Rygel's Palace on Hyneria. Father of **Tamilla** and **Nella**. A large Sebacean man and farmer from a colony back-world that was overrun by the Scarrans. After his wife was killed, Joban took his daughters and escaped, becoming a refugee until finding his way to Hyneria and a position in the Hynerian Royal Guard. During his tour of duty at the palace, Joban meets Shrike Berret and his family (in **"Future Tense"**), during a raid on the crewmate's apartments by the Nebari to recover Chiana, the ex-farmer helps fight off the attackers to save the crew and is wounded. Sometime in the cycles afterward, Joban retires and occasionally travels aboard Moya with his new friends, helping with their cargo hauling business.

**Tamilla:** Oldest daughter of Joban Rickler and maid at Rygel's Palace. Later becomes mate to D'Argo's son, Jothee.

**Nella:** Youngest daughter of Joban Rickler. A nurse on Hyneria.

**Zhara (Mihyta Zhara):** Young Delvian acolyte of Zhaan's and a friend of Chulee's. Barely out of her teens for a Delvian at 120 cycles old, Zhara has yet to take her vows for the first level of the Delvian Seek. A pretty girl of good humor and a loyal friend to Chulee and the rest of the crew, she also carries a torch for Berret who's been alone now for over five cycles after Chiana's death. Besides pressure from Chulee to consider the young Delvian for a companion, Zhaan and Malika also try their best to interest the Shrike in their friend and student.

**Marai:** The master assassin once known as **Val'Cirru**_**s**_ (In **"The Grandmaster"**) The reptilian female has now been healed and rehabilitate by the Shrike **Grandmaster Shenna** and is a full Master Shrike in the **Mek-Klor-TaZ** Shrike clan and Shenna's Right-hand. Marai deeply regrets her Syndicate past and is instrumental in finally bringing Berret into the fold of the Shrike clan. Despite their past almost deadly encounter, both Marai and Berret become allies and respected friends.

**Warna Druz:** An 18-cycle-old Sebacean girl and Shrike apprentice to **Marai** in the **Mek-Klor-TaZ** clan. She travels to Earth with her teacher in search of Berret and later accompanies him on a mission. Warna is fiercely loyal to Marai, especially after both her parents have died and Marai and the Clan raised her. Warna is also a very skilled pilot.

**Mytell ('Tell):** Assistant to Nerri, former rebel leader and now Proconsul of the _**"Nebari Free States"**_ on Nebari Secondus, and Chiana's brother. Mytell is also Chulee's suitor. After seeking permission to court his superior's niece and passing uncle Ka'D'Argo's severe scrutiny, Mytell is even more daunted to finally met his beloved's father upon his return to the Territories.

**Lerris:** Once Nebari Ambassador to Hyneria (in "**Future Tense**") Lerris has moved up to become Chancellor of Nebari Prime. Lerris and his henchman, Hyril, were responsible for the attack on the crewmate's quarters 20 cycles ago and the near fatal injuring of Chiana and Berret's son, Jalen. Berret viciously killed Hyril in an act of vengeance, but reluctantly left Lerris alive at Rygel's urging. Even after 20 cycles, Berret's hatred for Nebari outside of his family still burns, especially when it comes to Lerris.

**Lyric:** A 10-cycle-old Nebari orphan that Berret discovers on a **New Syndicate** outpost during a raid. Berret adopts the young girl into his family (both close and extended, meaning Moya's crew and the Shrike clan) A situation which creates more tension between Berret and Lerris, after the Chancellor attempts to take custody of the Nebari waif.

**Chiana, **_**Clone of:**_ Using stolen DNA, the **New Syndicate** (in **"Future Tense: Twilight's End".)** creates a clone of a teenage Chiana in an attempt to obliterate Berret before he can fulfill Shenna's wish for him to become the next Grandmaster of the Territories most powerful Shrike clan. The threat of a rogue Enforcer that once destroyed an old Syndicate High House is too great for the new organization to risk, so the clone is constructed. Born with the memories of a rebellious teen Chiana, the Syndicate leads her believe that Berret is responsible for the original Chiana's death, and trains her to become a Shrike Enforcer who's sole purpose is to track Berret down and kill him.

**Val'Cirrus:** see _"__**Marai**__"._

**Arckatius:** The Scarran leader of the Black Syndicate House that enslaved Berret and made him a Shrike Enforcer / Assassin. Arckatius is a distant cousin of Scorpius's and is slightly demented for a Scarran, believing himself to be a "King". In **"The Grandmaster",** Arckatius sends his Master Shrike, **Val'Cirru**_**s**_ after Berret to kill him and bring back his control collar - which contains information about several operations that Berret took part in for the Black Syndicate. Berret had vowed to kill the Scarran Syndicate leader in repayment for his enslavement, and the life he feels that Arckatius has destroyed. Driven by the haunting nightmares of the lives he was forced to take as a Syndicate Enforcer, Berret felt that killing Arckatius would go some way in atoning for his "sins." He also held the Scarran responsible for what he thought at the time as his inability to love Chiana... and that the Nebari girl could never love him in return because of the things he had done in his Syndicate past. Arckatius met his end somewhere in the events that take place in the story **"I, Assassin."** (Also a currently on-going story line.)

**Grandmaster Zear Shenna:** The leader of the mysterious Shrike Clan of Assassin Warriors of legend. A Delvian man well over 1600 cycles old, Shenna sometimes appeared when Berret or the crew found themselves needing help. For some reason Shenna has a mysterious interest in Berret and is somehow able to keep track of him and the crew no matter where they traveled in the Territories. The crew isn't sure what his agenda is, but so far he seems to genuinely have the group's best interest in heart. Grandmaster Shenna revealed some of the true history of the Shrike Clans to Berret and Chiana in **"The Grandmaster"**, where they learned that the Syndicate 'borrowed' the term 'Shrikes' for their assassin Enforcers... playing off the old legends of the ancient warrior / assassin / soldiers to increase the fearsome reputation of their killers. Shenna appears to be a kindly old man with a tendency to dolt randomly at times, but in reality he is a cunning shrewd manipulator of those around him… luckily mostly for their own good.

**Magda:** One of the Scarran leaders of the New Syndicate. May have been responsible for creating and training the Enforcer Chiana clone.

**Kessca:** a young Skykarian female Shrike and friend of Warna. Member of a Shrike clan strike team.

**Ardenin Reese:** Sebacean First Shrike (unit leader) of a clan strike team.

**Tamos Hunter:** young Sebacean male Shrike. Youngest member of a clan strike team.

**Tonk:** Simterrian Shrike member of a clan strike team. Simterrians are large apelike beings that resemble a Wookie on steroids. Easily twice the mass of a Luxan, the Simterrians usually serve as the heavy weapons unit of a strike team. Their battle armor often includes shoulder-mounted weapons such as missile pods or light pulse cannon.

**Hark:** Simterrian Shrike member of a clan strike team. Like all Simterrians, Hark rarely speaks unless he has something important to say, and when he or Tonk do speak, it's wise to listen to what they have to say. Fiercely loyal and courageous, there are few better fighters to have on your side.

**Lark:** Street name of a Nebari prostitute that Berret forces to help him in his plans to kill **Arckatiu**_**s**_ in **"I, Assassin."**

**Nireese:** a Sebacean / Nebari half-breed First Shrike in the **Mek-Klor-TaZ Clan**. **Master Shenna** sends her to help Chiana and the crew of Moya find Berret after he goes after **Arckatius** in **"I. Assassin".** Her younger brother was killed when the Scarrans annexed her home world.

**Shrike 568:** Chiana in an alternate reality in **The Dream Crystal** Series story **"The Genesis Throw".**

"**THE CHAINS OF FATE" SERIES NEW CHARACTERS & TERMS** Alternate AU to the show & my normal RPG group stories

**Sinn:** Berret's most commonly used alias. Also the named he used as a masked pit-fighter.

**Tessen Korr:** the alias Berret takes while working as a mercenary. It is also similar to a Scarran phrase _**-**__**' tes Zen Caor'**__** -**_ meaning, "Nobody, insignificant person, or non-entity".

**Istrish:** Female Sykaran Shrike freed by Berret who becomes part of a rebel army of ex-Enforcers. She helps rescue D'argo and nurse him back to health in the AU version of the Peacekeeper Wars.

**Marktaal:** A male Sykaran Shrike freed by Berret who becomes part of a rebel army of ex-Enforcers.

**Horgo:** A male Vorcarian Blood-Tracker Shrike who is part of a rebel army of ex-Enforcers.

**Vennic:** a male Szalned Shrike. Szalneds are approximately seven earth feet tall with four arms. Vennic is also part of the rebel Shrike army.

**Jaleecee ('Leecee):** a sixteen-cycle-old girl, half-Sebacean / half-Nebari, who works as a serving girl in the military camp where Tessen Korr acts as a mercenary scout. She is from a well-to-do family and is considered a proper lady, despite being a half-breed. However, her parents are killed in some conflict and her and her older brother flee their home world, only to end up as camp help on a planet in the midst of a civil war. She also takes side work caring for Korr's living quarters.

**Kenrikk ('Rikk):** Jaleecee's older brother. He is not happy with his younger sister's working arrangement with the scout, and has had several altercations with him over dishonorable rumors spreading through the camp.

**Haze:** Young Corporal in the regular military forces fighting the civil war.

**Acrooks:** Another young Corporal in the regular military forces fighting the civil war.

**Satuur:** An older Private in the regular army. Most people feel him to be untrustworthy for some reason they can't quite put their finger on.

**Raydoon:** A thief acquaintance of Chiana's

**Saifee Madden:** Boss of a local criminal gang that Chiana seeks employment from.

**KiEel Ry'Balton:** Second in command of **Saifree Madden's** crime ring.

**Stolie:** Strong arm man for **Saifee Madden**. There is bad blood between him and Chiana.

**Clivea Brendal:** **Saifree Madden's** biggest rival in the gambling and prostitution gambits, and also the chief prosecutor of that world's justice system. Also running to be elected Regional Governor.

**Pa'Looua Leaf:** One of many of the common names for a natural neural depressant found through out the Charted and Uncharted Territories. The roots and leaves can be chewed, brewed into a tea, or condensed for use in other medications. Berret learns of the herb from Noranti in **"Take From Me, My Shattered Soul" **and finds it helps quiet the specter of the Scarran control collar left inside his mind which is progressively driving him deeper into madness. However, over time the effects are weakening even as Berret increases the dosage. In it rare form, Pa'Looua Leaf is used to claim nervous herd beasts on some planets.

**Chroot stick :** Something like a cigarette.

**Sniper Rifle:** As the name suggests, a pulse rifle built for extreme accuracy over long ranges. As opposed to a standard Peacekeeper rifle, the pulse sniper rifle has a longer barrel which fires a concentrated pulse bolt about the diameter of an adult's little finger. The stock is also slightly larger for comfortably bracing the weapon off the shooter's shoulder and it has a powerful optic sight that can be linked directly to the helmet visor of a Shrike's Enforcer armor. The fore-stock of the weapon also has a built in bipod. Berret has one of these that was supplied with the **Wraith Scout Ship** he stolen from Arckatius's stronghold in his escape.

**SOME ORGANIZATIONS & GROUPS IN THE STORIES**

**Mek-Klor-TaZ Clan:** The true name for the Shrike sec that **Grandmaster Shenna** leads. This branch of Shrikes has served the Hynerian throne and Rygel's family for many generations. A pact of secrecy, support, and service as existed between the two organizations and is so strong that it is one of the few things Rygel would never think of betraying. The Dominar never reveals his knowledge all the long cycles aboard Moya to Berret, though he keeps an eye on the ex-Enforcer at Shenna's request.

**Scarran Black Syndicate:** (The Syndicate, Black Syndicate) Criminal organization that has it origins dating back to early Scarran culture. In modern times the membership is no longer restricted to only Scarrans, though the head of each family, known as "Houses" is typically a Scarran. The organization is technically outlawed and considered an enemy of the state by the Scarran Imperium, but the government is not above using the Syndicate as a resource if the situation warrants it. The Black Syndicate also has strong ties into other cultures and worlds and rumor has even into the highest ranks of Peacekeeper Command. All is not always peaceful inside the Syndicate as well. The hierarchy is divided into "High" and "Lower" Houses, each with their own territories, free agents, and preferred illegal operations. There are often violent and bloody feuds between various Houses over one thing or another. Each Syndicate House employs Enforcers or Assassins they call Shrikes, after mythic warriors of legend. Rumor has it that about 1000 cycles ago, a Syndicate House stumbled across one of the scattered real Shrike clans or schools. After enslaving the survivors they forced them to reveal some of their secrets and used them to re-create the Shrikes as a weapon for Syndicate use. Using controlled slaves or free-willed murderers garbed in a version of Shrike battle armor and cloaks, the Black Syndicate wrote a bloody name for itself through the next 1000 cycles of history on the edge of brace blades made from a rare element that could shear through some metals, as well as flesh, as if it were paper.

**New Syndicate:** The organization that is attempting to arise from the ashes of the **Scarran Black Syndicate** some cycles after its collapse. The new criminal order was formed mainly of old Black Syndicate survivors and some former Peacekeepers that found a life of crime was more profitable than continued service to a dying military branch, along with some of society's dregs from other species.

**Nebari Free States:** (also referred to as the **NFS** for short.) The new free world created by Chiana's brother Nerri and his rebel fighters, where Nebari who have fled the Establishment on Nebari Prime can live freely without the fear of mental cleansing, or under the Establishment's oppress rule. The world that they have settled has been renamed, **Nebari Secondus** – much to the annoyance of the rules of Nebari Prime. The Establishment does its best to reabsorb the rebels, but they also have secret military bases that they can retreat to or attack from if needed. This leaves them in pretty much a stalemate, until Rygel the Sixteenth forces them to come to an unsteady truce for the shake of the New Alliance.

**Nebari Secondus:** The world settled just outside Hynerian space by Nebari rebels and refugees. See **Nebari Free States**.

**MORE TERMS**

**Nebari Bonding:** The Nebari form of marriage. Life partners exchange vows before priest or other spiritual leader, at the end of which their witnesses pierce their left ears with matching earrings. Bonding is the one single aspect of Nebari culture that Chiana would not joyfully go out of her way to scoff at or disrespect.

**Nebari Bonding Earrings:** Used just like Erp humans use wedding rings to denote a bonding. There are many different variations, but they look something similar to Erp's Celtic Trinity Knot.

**Nebari – Cheek Rubbing Ritual:** Nebari by nature are highly sensual before mental conditioning. Kissing and sexual intimacy are often casual play for those who have escaped the Establishment before Mental Cleansing. Nebari constantly touching another person cheek-to-cheek is a form of body language to let the other person know they are special to them… and not just another casual frell.

**Nebari Nicknames:** The nicknames of 'Len & 'Lee for Chiana and Berret's children, stem from a Nebari custom I invented for the stories where close friends and family members used a shortened version of a person's name as a sign of a close or intimate relationship. Thus Jalen and Chulee are sometimes referred to as 'Len and 'Lee by their parents and other members of the crew. Chiana sometimes calls Berret - 'Ret, while Chiana is called 'Ana by her brother when they met. Nerri's name is not shortened in the story but would probably be something like 'Ri if it was. The ( ' ) is suppose to indicate a slight Nebari accent on the name. I leave that up to the reader to imagine exactly how that would sound to them.

**Shella-tai: **Nebari term of endearment. Usually spoken from parent to child, but can often be used by one person in speaking to another person who is significantly younger than the speaker to indicate fondness for them.

**Shella-Madai:** Nebari term of endearment from child to adult who is not a parent, but whom they are fond of, or respect. Similar to an Earth child calling a close family friend "Aunt" or "Uncle" even though there is to blood or marriage ties to the family. Use of the term often dies away as Nebari children enter the annoying teenage cycles.

**SaiDa** – Nebari word for father, dad, or daddy.

**SaiNa** – Nebari word for mother, mom, or mommy.

"**Shi'mo Bak Ko, Shi mo Ko Die":** Luxan curse phrase that's better off not being translated in polite company.

"**Luk ki VaIsh":** Luxan curse that is loosely comparable to saying, "Damn it!" "Frell me!" and "Screw it all to hell!" all rolled into one.

"**Klaz-kik',":** Scarran derogatory term meaning, "half-breed".

"**Makva cUuz J'cot!":** High Scarran words phrased in a insult. Meaning to use a certain appendage to go fornicate with one's self.

**BAT' RELLITE:** The Scarran term for a rare alloy used primarily to make the blades of a Shrikes brace weapons. The molecules of the metal are arranged in layers that vibrate in opposite directions from each other, creating a "saw-like" effect on the molecular level. Thus blades made from this element never need to be sharpened and can easily cut through lesser grades of metals – with the exception of Qualta. Qualta is denser and has a refracting quality that blocks Bat'Rellite's molecular cutting effect. This quality in Qualta is one reason why Luxan make their weapons, particularly the Qualta Sword, out of it. Weapons constructed of this material would most likely never blow up from accidental over-charging and remain serviceable for hundreds of cycles. The armor of Shrike Enforcers from High Syndicate Houses often have Qualta inlays to help defeat attacks by other Shrikes, as there is often in-fighting among the Houses for power and territory.

**Wraith Scout Ship:** A three man scout craft larger than a Prowler but smaller than a Marauder or Transport Pod. Used by Peacekeepers mainly as covert surveillance vessel, it is equipped with a stealth system that renders it invisible to most scans and detection networks, but not to line of physical sight. The large wings tilt upwards for landing and deploy lighter sections of "sensor sails" for its high-gain scanning equipment and systems. The ship's profile somewhat resembles an Earth-like bird of prey. The Wraith has a fairly advanced Artificial Intelligence computer, or A.I., for a brain to run all its stealth and covert scanning systems. It is standardly armed with a drop-down missile system in its belly, put can also be outfitted with slow-fire pulse cannon in its nose section, but that requires more space-taking equipment so the option is rarely used among PK forces. The slightly larger duel engines on the Wraith will eventually outrun a Prowler on the straightaway, but would not compete with the Prowler for maneuverability in a dogfight or planet's atmosphere. The craft is normally painted a flat-black, and likewise any Peacekeeper fleet insignia are of a darker color to blend in. The more wealthier Syndicate Houses have managed to acquire a few of the ships, to spy on other Houses, but mainly to have a stealthy way of getting their agents in and out of places they don't wish to be seen entering or leaving. Syndicate Wraiths have no PK insignia on closer inspection, which makes them suspicious to the observant spaceport personnel. The Wraith that Berret stole was first refitted once aboard Moya, using stored spare parts, with a pair of 'electric guns' each consisting of three smaller Prowler pulse cannon that rotate at high speed inside the slow-fire cannon ports of the Wraith. The result is a weapon system that gives a high rate of fire that does not burn the barrels out. The design originated from the need to find a way to fit spare armament that was on hand into a port designed for a much larger and more powerful weapon. John commented that Berret had in fact, "recreated the old Vulcan machinegun" in a way. The main draw back of this system is that targeting is limited, and the craft has to be very nearly pointed at what it's attacking to be effective. The next refit was designed and implemented mostly by Aeryn Sun, who replaced the existing drop-down missile pod with a turret that swiveled a complete 360 degrees. Prior to this, missiles targeted at something behind the Wraith had to be programmed to leave the pod and run out in front of the ship for some distance, then turn and fly back to engage the target at the rear. A practice that Chiana turned out to be very talented at – much to Berret's growing collection of new gray hair – but also wasted time and the missile's fuel. The missile pod and then the turret could be stocked with a various number or combination of missile types, but the crew was limited to whatever they could scrounge up, trade or barter for, or steal. Keeping track of ship's weapons stock was sometimes difficult as Aeryn was constantly moving armament around between the Wraith and two Prowlers as it was needed or used up. The A.I. also has the capability to trace a small tracking device if it gets to a certain point near the edge of its range and follow it. The option is risky, as the A.I. if left to fly and navigate on its own can be a safety hazard to other ships inside the close parking orbit of a busy commerce planet. (The **Wraith Scout Ship** was created, designed, and belongs to **Chant99**.)

**Wanderer Module:** Sean Crichton's experimental craft. It can be describe as a slightly larger version of the Farscape Module, but with technology about 70 years more advanced. (The _**Wanderer Module**_ was created and belongs to **Marspsi12**.)

**Leviticus System:** Section of space where a stable wormhole to Earth was discovered. Andar Murdough built a device that slung Sean Crichton and the **Wanderer Module** forward to his own time, along with a store of Peacekeeper technology to help Earth prepare for what the Territories had in store for it. Berret later used the wormhole to travel the Earth in the Wraith after Chiana's death. Marai and Warna later used the wormhole to bring him back.

**THE "FUTURE TENSE" CHRONICLE:**

The Events from "Future Tense":

This story takes place approximately 11 cycles after the show's timeframe and my RPG game. At this time it has been already discovered that Berret is a human that had been abducted by alien slavers and sold to the Scarran Black Syndicate as a slave. Being a human is what had allowed Berret to survive the implantation of the experimental microbes that normally killed the average Sebacean. The microbes alter Berret's physiology to the point where he can no longer be considered an Earth human and in the beginning he feels no connection to John or Sean as being a member of the same species. Unlike the two Crichtons, he has no desire to return to Earth, as he would no longer fit in even if he could remember all of his past on his homeworld. Sometime during his time aboard Moya, Zhaan (who is alive, as well as Crais and Talyn in this universe.) helps him retrieve some memories from his past, one of which is his first name - Jared.

At John insistence that humans generally have two names, Berret adopts the name Jared Berret. While John sometimes refers to Berret as J.B., Chiana on the other hand often ignores or refuses to use the name Jared in the beginning. As she starts to realize she had feelings for the ex-assassin beyond their relationship as friends and crewmates, she finds she's strangely reluctant to acknowledge anything that was part of Berret's life before their meeting and sticks to the name Berret which she had given him. As time goes on and the pair go through various trials and adventures and are Bonded (Nebari version of marriage) the reluctance fades and she's comfortable using his first name, only falling back on the name Berret in times of severe stress or trouble.

The Events in "Future Tense: Broken Mirror":

The story picks up approximately a quarter cycle after the events in "Future Tense". The crew has decided to pick up their cargo hauling business when Jalen has recovered enough from his injuries despite the growing war between the Peacekeepers and the Scarrans. On a supply run, an accident resulting from the use of a new Scarran weapon transports Zhaan and Berret into an alternate reality - and eleven cycles into the past.

Needless to say, the reality they end up in is the one from the show. This was written during the Chiana / D'argo relationship but before the arrival of Jothee or the death of Zhaan. This story is still ongoing and is nowhere near finished yet. It may take some time to do so as I have several other stories also in the works - so please be patient with me.

The Events in "Future Tense: Twilight's End":

Twenty cycles have passed since the events in "Broken Mirror." Chiana has passed away due to a strange illness, leaving her children, Berret, and the rest of the crew to go on without her. Berret has discovered that the microbes the Syndicate infected him with are not allowing him to age normally, well into his sixties, Berret still appears to be a man in his mid 30's. Growing no closer to old age and a time of rest, and feeling the loss of his beloved Bond-mate, Berret decided to leave Moya and return to Earth to explore his past. Time passes for Berret until Rygel and Shenna sent a plea for him to return to the Territories to help them face a growing menace that threatens them all. Berret returns to take part in one final conflict for control of the Territories - and the everlasting safety of his family and friends.

This story is also on-going and already has well over a 100 pages written and it's maybe half done. Unfortunately I jump around quite a bit when I write so this story is in sections that need more parts written yet to join them together.

Also of course, the above cast of characters and list of new terms is subject to change and/or additions as characters and things become more or less important in each story line.

As always, I have several storylines going, and go back and forth to keep from getting bored and the story from getting too stale. So it may sit for a while, while I give it a rest and work on something else. I feel its better for the story in the long run instead of forcing ideas to come just to finish it up. This story is meant to be the end of the adventure, and maybe the beginning of something else. After all, even Captain Kirk died in the end so that the story and the adventure could live on elsewhere. But then again... does anyone really die in Sci-fi?

Thanks for bearing with me through this long explanation. I truly also apologize for the layout of my last few stories, I have yet to figure out how to get the format from MS Word to transfer right to the site, but it still doesn't work right for me.

I truly hope you enjoy the story.

Chant99


	2. Chapter 1

**The Chains of Fate: Exiles of the Heart**

By Chant99

**DURING THE LAST FEW ARNS OF THE PEACEKEEPER / SCARRAN CONFLICT:**

The pain in his guts was fading to numbing cold.

Ka'D'Argo knew he was mere moments away from finally dying. He clumsily checked the charge in the last weapon that John had left with him and found that he had depleted it's final magazine completely with the last combined Scarran and Charrid attack.

He chuckled groggily to himself. Even while fatally wounded, he had killed every last attacker in the last ten microns without sustaining so much as another scratch. Had there been any other witnesses, the battles he just fought would have been worthy of a Luxan campaign song. But there was none here to go on to write it.

It was just as well, he sighed weakly. His battle cry of "Who's your daddy!" as he killed both Scarran and Charrid alike, probably won't have translated well in to Luxan. He snickered and coughed up a wad of dark blood. He spat the wad into the dirt next to him.

"Frell it," he croaked. He liked the battle cry John had left him with anyway.

His only real regret was not having enough time to properly say goodbye to Chiana.

Something moved through the dust of the battleground and a Charrid helmet came into view. D'argo knew the next wave of attackers was upon him as more Charrids and a few Scarran came up behind the point man. The first Charrid saw the dying Luxan and pointed him out to the rest of his companions.

D'argo found he had one good snarl left inside him and voiced it while drawing his knife. "Who's your daddy!" he rasped out at his opponents while brandishing his blade. Not caring how pitiful he must have seemed lying there on the ground and waving it around.

The Charrids took note of the two empty pulse weapons discarded on the ground by the fallen warrior and concluded that they were out of ammo. A Scarran commander also took stock of the situation, and coming to the same conclusion, order his men to walk in and finish the Luxan.

Laughing at the Luxan's bravado, a few of the Charrids raised their rifles and took a few steps close to D'argo to finish him off. The warrior grit his teeth and clutched his only weapon, uttering curses at the Charrids possible ancestors and daring them to get closer to him.

The Charrids had found the injured Luxan so entertaining that they failed to notice the numerous shadows behind and to the sides of them come to life, and flow fluidly across the hazy battle field toward them.

D'argo caught the shades right away from his half prone position, and for a microt his heart leaped with the thought his friends had come back to fight one last time besides him.

A bone-chilling song of finely honed metal being unsheathed told the warrior that it wasn't his comrades coming back for him. The first hint the Charrids had of anything amiss was the sound of dying Scarrans at their rear. They turned almost as one unit, but it was too late, the black-garbed figures were among them in a flash and they too began to shriek and die.

D'argo watched in fogged astonishment. He caught quick glimpses of gunmetal armor and swirling black cloaks and knew that an element of Black Syndicate Enforcers – Shrikes – had joined the fighting.

But why were they killing Charrids and Scarrans, he asked himself? Shrikes were assassin members of a Scarran criminal underworld. There's no explanation why they would be slaughtering Scarrans and Charrids.

Almost before it started, the attack was over and the last Charrid fell to the ground headless, having been decapitated by the brace blades of one of the assassins. In the background, a number of cloaked figures went from body to body to ensure they were truly dead. Nearby, a group of Shrikes meet and appeared to be having a discussion. Several times they turned in his direction and D'argo knew he was the subject of the conversation. The assassin's wore the armored battle helmets that covered their entire heads and face, leaving only a pair of slightly glowing eyes lens as any noticeable feature. The effect left the Enforcers looking as if some hezmana-spawned creatures were regarding him with eyes of fire. Dargo spat another glob of clotting blood onto the ground beside him, partly because it was near choking him, and partly in contempt because the creatures were a too plain reminder of the murderous Berret who had been with Moya's crew for a short chaotic time.

The warrior could hear no voices coming from the group, so he assumed the assassins were using some sort of comm system to communicate securely between themselves.

Black forms drifted in and out of the scene, making it hard for D'argo to count how many Shrikes there actually were around him. The only ones that he could be sure about were the four standing close by having their powwow. Occasionally one or another would raise an armor covered arm and wave or point at the prone Luxan. D'argo was sure they were talking about what to do with him, and he was also sure that a majority of the discussion was on whether or not to just kill him.

"Frell you, you bastards…" D'argo rasped out in barely a whisper, "I'm frelling dying anyway. Keep talking and by the time you feniks make up your minds… I'll be gone and cold."

He wasn't sure if the Shrikes could hear him or just chose to ignore him for the moment, but the defiance made him feel better.

Finally two of the quartet of assassins who seemed to be in charge for the most part, appeared to have bent the others to their will, and the other pair abruptly departed off in different directions. He hadn't noticed it, but during that short time his attention was on the smaller group of Enforcers, the other Shrikes that were in the background had also faded off and were now unseen.

The tallest Shrike turned and looked upon the Luxan with red electronic eyes. D'argo tried to gripped his knife once more, knowing that it would be less than useless against a fully armored Enforcer, but he'd be damned if he wasn't going to die without a weapon in his hand. The big warrior cursed, as he found that his hand no longer had the strength to hold the knife properly.

The humanoid assassins both strode over toward him and D'argo prepared to die. When they were close enough to him the smaller Shrike bend at its knees and knelt down to him. It watched him silently with those red glowing visor eyes, tilting its head back and forth slightly as if studying him.

D'argo growled another weak curse in Luxan and spat at the Shrike.

The Enforcer easily avoided the spittle by nonchalantly twisting out of its path. Unperturbed, the assassin reached out and removed the knife from the warrior's limp fingers and placed it on the ground next to him.

"Go…ahead… and… kill me," D'argo gasped out. "I'm dying… anyway. You're… too… late… you… frell-frelling… bas-tard!"

Unexpectedly, the Shrike did something unseen and the red light from its visor died. An instant later the visor section of the helmet snapped upward revealing humanoid-looking eyes behind it.

"You're not dead yet, Luxan," the Enforcer said in a low dry tone that was obviously female. With the lower part of the face plate still covering the female assassin's jaw and mouth, D'argo couldn't tell if the Shrike's slightly muffled voice had made the statement a question or an observation.

D'argo chose not to reply to his enemy, letting his silence speak his racial contempt for Syndicate assassins.

She turned slightly to regard the bigger assassin standing behind her.

"This one and his group fit the description _he_ had given us," the female Shrike said. Dargo could hear the emphasis on the pronoun 'he' in her comment. The larger Enforcer merely tilted its head in silent accord with the statement. She turned her eyes back to the dying warrior. "Then we must try, _he_ would expect that of us. Give it to him," she ordered.

The second Shrike took a pace forward and then held up its right forearm. D'argo expected to see the twin serrated blades he knew the gauntlet brace contained to spring outward over the top of the assassin's fist. Instead a pair of needle-like rods slid out from the brace just under the Shrike's wrist.

The Luxan knew immediately that it was a device for injecting something.

"You're going to use poison to kill me?" he asked unbelievingly, his voice momentarily becoming stronger in his amazement. "You… you… frelling… Shrikes… are pitiful," he spat, "Go ahead… you coward… do… your frelling… worse."

The Shrike's head titled to one side as if amused, its cold electronic eyes gave it a hint of demonic mirth, and D'argo imagined if he could have seen the assassin's features behind the armored mask, it might have been smiling in an equally malevolent way to match the hezmana fire glow of the visor lens.

D'argo had no reason to believe the pair had nothing but ill intentions for him.

"Do it!" the Luxan barked out.

The Shrike rammed the duel spikes in just below D'argo's collarbone. The Luxan grit his teeth determined not to give the assassin the satisfaction of hearing him cry out as the poison killed him.

His lips parted and the scream escaped anyway. Whatever the assassin was pumping into him burned like the very fires of hezmana itself.

The last view D'argo had before all went dark was of the female Shrike's now expressionless eyes staring down at him from what now appeared to the Luxan as a great height.

**THREE QUARTERS OF A CYCLE LATER:**

Crichton arrived at the Center Chamber just in time to see another expensive figurine shatter against a bulkhead. The ceramic shards tinkled to the deck to join the scattered ruminates of several other statuette victims. Chiana's wordless scream filled his ears as she seized another statue and sent it hurling at a bulkhead on the opposite side of the chamber.

It was the Nebari's screams that had brought him on the run in the first place. He expected to find the young girl being attacked by an up till then, undetected intruder. Instead she was alone in the mess hall.

The second pottery missile met the same finish as the others against the unyielding walls of the Leviathan.

"Yo, Pip!" he called as she turned and grabbed up the next figure in line. "What the hell are you doing?"

Chiana whirled on him, almost looking as if she might throw the next piece in her hand at him. Instead she smashed it off the massive table in the center of the room.

Her head jerked wildly as she looked at her crewmate.

"I'm breaking things… what the frell does it look like," she responded irritably.

"I can see that," John replied, now realizing that the gray girl had entered into one of her blacker destructive moods that had been becoming more regular in the last half-cycle. "But I wish you'd stop. You're making enough noise to wake the baby."

"I don't care," she said. Two more figurines left the table and shattered against the same bulkhead an instant later.

The human sighed. Chiana seemed to be going down hill at hetch-seven since D'argo died, and there was nothing anyone aboard Moya could do to help the girl. Chiana was like a little sister to him and Crichton loved her deeply in that way. But Aeryn and their son, D'argo, needed him and most of his time; so there was little left he could spare for the hurting girl. It was at time like this he really missed Zhaan's presence on board.

"I thought those statues were expensive… and a gift from that guy, Lame-o?" he asked, trying to make her focus on something else besides smashing things.

"Loremos," she corrected. "And they are," she confirmed.

Another statuette met its end under her boot heel after she dropped it on the deck.

"Then why are you trashing them?" he wanted to know. It wasn't like the thief to treat items she could turn a quick credit on like that, no matter how moody she became in his prior experience.

"Because… I'm sick of it all!" she told him.

"Sick of what?" he asked.

There were several more figurines left on the counter. Chiana violently whipped her hand through them, sending them flying to bust against walls, table, and deck as they hit with impressive force.

"Everything!" she snapped as she came to a crouch in front of Crichton, looking animalistic. "Every-frelling-thing!" she repeated as she twisted her face up closer to his.

"Look, Pip…" he tried to soothe.

"NO!" the Nebari barked. "No, Crichton. I don't want to hear it. Don't try and tell me that dren about how its all gonna be alright. Don't try and sell me that pipe-dream anymore."

"Chiana…" John could only say, as he was face-to-face with her pain.

"It's not alright. Its never gonna be alright, Crichton," Chiana continued as if he hadn't said anything to interrupt her. "I… I lose everything… everyone I care about… there's nothing! Nerri's gone – my own brother won't let me find him. Zhaan's gone… Berret's gone… and now D'argo's dead." She looked up at him with near pleading eyes. "What do I have, John? What do I have?"

"Little girl… it's not all that bad," he answered in a near whisper.

"Nothing!" the gray girl countered. "I… have… nothing." The look in her eyes became slightly more stable as she spoke her next thoughts. "You know… there was one time I wanted you. But then I saw that you and Aeryn belonged together… and I saw that was the right thing. And I told myself, one day that will be me and somebody. One day, I'll be happy like that."

"You will," John assured her.

Chiana merely shook her head slightly. "No… not for me. I'm cursed, Crichton. I thought I'd found it with D'argo that first time, but I frelled it up. Then I thought after meeting Berret that I was getting closer. It was so good to feel the way I did. Someone did miraculous things because of me as a person, not for my body or because I tricked them. I grieved so much when I thought he'd died so I could get away, but at the same time… I was… a part of me was 'thrilled'… that another person thought me worthy enough to lay down their life for me. Is that wrong… Is that… evil, to feel that way?"

John shook his head. "No, Pip. It just means part of him saw the real you. The good part of you we all see and love."

"Then why do I always lose?" she asked. "When D'argo and I got back together, I swore I would do right this time. I wouldn't frell up my second chance with him. Even when we thought we lost you and Aeryn… and I was blind, I still never gave up. Then Berret turned up alive and I got my sight back, I thought it was a sign – everything was gonna be okay. Even though 'Ret had changed, I was sure then that I could help him. I could make everything fine again… because I was getting closer to the happy life I wanted.

"Then we got Aeryn and you back and it was almost perfect. I just had to help Retty beat what the Syndicate did to him, that was it… but then he went… and did what he did…" she gave a loud sniff as she went on, her eyes began to water despite her effort to hold back the tears that had been forming there.

"Then the Scarrans took D'argo from me… and left me with … nothing."

"You still have us," the human told her.

The Nebari girl shook her head once more.

"It's not enough, John… its just not enough."

"Chiana," Crichton began, "I know it's been a lot. I know what you must have went through during that time we had all left Moya…"

Her wild-mane of white hair blurred as her head suddenly snapped around on him, her eyes and expression turned emotionless in an instant and froze the thought in his mind before he could complete it.

"No…" she said with eerie calmness. "No, you can't know. Nobody can know! No one here… can understand what my life has become. Nobody can see just what a cluster-frell my dreams have turned into!"

Her head tilted curiously as if she were seeing the human for the first time in her life. Crichton suddenly had the feeling he was standing in the Center Chamber with a complete stranger.

"That's what I'm sick of," she continued in that oddly even monotone. "I'm sick of seeing everyone else find some part of happiness… while fate brings up my hopes, and then crushes them. I can't watch this anymore – I can't sit in the corner and watch you and Aeryn raise your family. I can't watch Rygel get his family and throne back again while D'argo lays dead and cold. I can't watch… I won't watch anymore."

She had begun to back away from him toward the chamber access way as she had spoken. John realized she meant this last torrent as her parting comment as she turned away.

"What are you going to do, Chiana?" he found himself asking to the girl's back.

She paused for a microt at the door, turning her head just enough so he could make out her profile.

"I'm getting off at the next commerce planet," she supplied, still in that strange tone. "I'm leaving Moya," she finished then step out the door.

Crichton involuntarily shuddered at the lack of color in the gray girl's voice. For an instant, she reminded him of the dead Shrike she had so vainly wanted to help.

Corporal Haze shoveled the last of his mid-day meal into his mouth and at the same time tried not to chuckle out loud at the off-color joke his teammate, Corporal AcRooks, had just finished telling him as they sat outside the field mess tent.

The story about the drunken Luxan and the Sheyang tralk had been a good one, so he forced the last mouthful of slop the military called food down, and let the belly laugh he was holding back find it's way out.

"Aye, AcR… that was a good," Haze finally said. "I didn't know whether to puke out my lunch or dren my pants!"

"Should have done both and saved yourself a trip to the latrine in half an arn," his comrade replied.

"Make that an arn," put in Haze with a pat of his now content belly. "Its not often ground-pounders like us get a whole day off to lay around the firebase. Man's gotta take his leisure time where he can in this fenik's army."

"Well… some of us enjoy the time off the front lines," AcRooks replied distractedly. Haze followed his friend's gaze and saw that the other man's attention on another nearby soldier. Haze recognized immediately who it was and frowned.

"Ugh… why you wasting your free time thinkin' on him?" he asked.

AcRooks gave him a half shrug. "There just something off about that unit scout," he told the other Corporal, for what must have been the hundredth time by the other man's count.

Haze replied by merely shaking his head.

"Well, you have to be 'off' to want to spend most of your time out in front of a combat unit instead of inside it where there's at least some protection from enemy fire."

"That's just it," he said as he watched the subject of their discussion eat his own meal, off by himself and away from the rest of the soldiers. "He seems to like it that way… ain't natural."

Haze paused a few microts to dig in one pocket and find a wrapped Chroot stick. He placed the stick between his lips and lit it, blowing out a lungful of the harsh smoke as he too found himself regarding the other man across from them.

"Ain't nothing natural about that one," he agreed when he finally spoke. "Bastard moves like a ghost in the field… and says less. Gives me a case of the j'Ell-hebbers. What did he say his name was again?"

"Tessen Korr," AcRooks supplied.

"Hum…" the other hummed in thought. "Isn't that Scarran?" he asked his better-educated friend a moment later.

The other half-shook his head with his answer. "Not a proper Scarran name… but its close to ' tes Zen Caor' in Scarran."

"What's it mean if it's not a name?"

"Like a pronoun of sorts for a nonentity… would mean 'nobody' or 'no one' in a rough translation."

"Think it's a joke?" Haze asked him next.

AcRooks shrugged again. "Who knows? Most of the mercs fighting in this frelling war are using fake names. The ruling caste doesn't care as long as the rebels keep catching pulse bolts."

"Frelling strange," Haze with a nod at the scout.

"No argument there," said the other. "Do you see the way he eats after a heavy engagement? Enough for five grunts the size of Luxans. I think he likes the fighting… like some men like to frell a good tralk."

Haze slowly nodded his head once more and narrowed his eyes as something occurred to him.

"I heard from a few marines in 'B' company that he took out five reb sentries one night without a sound. After they cleared out the main rebel cell, they found the guards dead at their posts without a single bleeding wound on the lot of them. Four broken necks and one shattered skull… no pulse burns, no blade wounds… all done with bare hands."

"Frelling strange…" added AcRooks.

"Never much paid him any mind until you started obsessing on him," Haze admitted. "Don't think I've ever seen him smile. Doesn't associate with any other ground-pounders while off the chron. Hardly see him while on patrol… just takes that odd sniper rifle of his and goes. Wouldn't know he was out there if it weren't for the dead rebs we run across. Don't think anyone knows what his kill count is, not even the high-collars back at command."

Haze's tongue worked around his teeth for a moment, then he spat a ruminate of his meal out onto the ground before him. "You ever see him make use of a pleasure slave anytime?" he inquired.

AcRooks simply shook his head in the negative.

"Keeps to himself as far as I or anyone else I talked to knows," he supplied further.

"A combat grunt needs sex during wartime," Haze said absently. "Relieves the stress a soldier builds up fighting for weekens at a time. Keeps a man sharp and easy when there's killing to be done. Man go crazy without that sort of release every so often."

"Whole reason for stocking the firebases with pleasure slaves for the men," AcRooks agreed.

"A man always wanting to be alone, choosing to fight alone, not using the slaves… maybe he already is crazy?" Haze thought out loud.

"That's been my point all along," the other Corporal said. "Have you ever taken a close look at his eyes, I mean a real close look?" Haze shook his head in answer. "They're dead," AcRooks went on, "Dead like, I mean no spark of life at all. Uvac'ii over in third company swore to me that one night on ambush patrol he ran into that scout on the trail… and that his eyes looked like they were on fire or something.

"Uvac'ii likes his Raslek too much," Haze retorted.

"Have you ever seen him packing night vision occulars when he's been assigned to scout for our unit? I haven't."

Haze turned and regarded him with an upraised eyebrow and then frowned deeply. "Now you'll have me spending all my free time thinking about that silly-eema nurfer," he spat at the other.

"Just ain't natural," AcRooks replied, looking back over to the man called Tessen.

"Yeah…" Haze followed a microt later, his eyes going to the same place. "… frelling strange."

The man calling himself Tessen Korr drained his kit mug of the weak tea the mess tent had served with and set it on the ground besides the rock he had chosen for a seat while he ate.

He went back to his half-finished plate and had just lifted the fork to his mouth when the civilian server approached him.

"Refill your cup for you, scout?" asked a young female voice.

Tessen idly glanced up for a microt to see young Nebari/Sebacean half-breed standing beside him with a tea canister. He absently waved for her to refill the mug and dismissed her from further thought. The firebase was filled support personal, many of which were of mixed races. It wasn't uncommon for them to gravitate to such backwater worlds to find wherever work or life they could… even if it was working in a war zone. Many races in the Territories did not tolerate half-breeds in their societies.

The girl had just finished filling his mug and was setting it down very carefully by his side again when a four-man artillery squad happened by. The young men had been obviously enjoying their off duty time and had gotten into the Raslek and Fillip nectar supplies early that day.

The group was rather noisy and creating quite a disturbance was they half marched, half staggered through the camp.

One of the men spied the young Nebari half-breed as she turned to move on with her camp duties.

He immediately slapped the nearest other man in the party across the chest to get his attention. The blow nearly brought the other man to the point of returning the favor; until he saw what the first man had intended him to see. The offended party immediately forgot his grievance once he glimpsed the female also.

"Now that… is what I call a tralk!" the first man said out loud, making the rest of the unit pull up short and stop with the first pair.

"That's a frelling lot better than that sorry lot of pleasure tramps we normally get," said the second soldier.

"Half Nebari too," said a third, "You know what they say about Nebari girls."

The squad immediately changed direction to head the girl off; she had only taken several steps away from the scout before they had her surrounded.

"Hey, what's your hurry?" the first artillery officer asked the nervous server after they had blocked her in.

"Please, sir… let me pass," the girl said. "I… I have my job, my duty to see that all the troops are being fed." She looked from one to the other of the leering faces, growing more frightened by the microt.

"What happens if we have some 'other duty' for you to perform?" asked one.

"Like back at our barracks… in our bedrolls," another added with a malevolent sneer.

The young girl's dark eyes flew wide open as she realized the situation and what the drunken men had in mind for her.

"Please… I'm just a server. My brother and I work in the kitchens," she explained rapidly. "I'm not a pleasure slave!"

"You're what we say you are, bitch," the first man told her with growing danger in his voice. The other men in his group chuckled as the girl tried to back away, but only ran up against one of the other men behind her. She yelped out loud with surprise as a hand found her undefended backside and pinched.

"Please!" she cried out again, almost in a blind panic now. "I'm just only sixteen-cycles-old!" she pleaded.

"Well then… you shouldn't have too many bad habits we have to break," someone replied with a laugh.

"Leave her alone."

The voice had been low and out of place within the squad. All four men looked back and forth at each other, attempting to determine which of them had uttered the sentence. The leader of the group, the first man to spy the grayish-skinned girl, shook off his moment of bewilderment and reached for the girl's arm to attempt to drag her off and back to their quarters.

"I said to leave her alone," came the voice again.

This time the whole unit pinpointed the source of the dry sounding demand. They turned to look over at the scout, still seated on his rock, as he casually scrapped the last of the food from his plate.

The first artilleryman inspected the scout and a sneer of contempt lit his face a moment later.

"You're not talking to us? Are you, you frelling merc scum?" he asked.

The scout took his time, and finished the last of his second mug of tea before setting it down and answering.

"I don't see anyone else molesting a server girl, eema-hole."

The leader of the unit was almost taken aback by the response. His jaw worked for a microt or two as his anger built.

"You don't know your place, scout. I'm regular army and I out-rank you. I can have you flogged for insubordination, even though you're a mercenary fenik," the squad leader warned.

Tessen simply sat, still holding his now empty kit plate in one hand, while regarding the man with a look of growing boredom on his face. His tongue found a piece of food stuck to his teeth and he worked it out and then spat it on the ground before him. Mess food always seemed to have tough un-chewable parts not matter what it was suppose to be. His uninterested gaze looked up and settle back on the artilleryman.

The other grinned, taking the scout's silence to mean he had been subjugated.

"I don't think we need to bother command with a tribunal for insubordination," he said as he looked at the others in his unit for approval. "I think we can just dispense some military justice here and now." The others all nodded and voiced their agreement. He turned back toward Tessen and smiled. He gave the girl's arm a jerk and she near whimpered as she looked back and forth between the artillery squad and the scout she briefly hoped would get her out of the situation.

"We're going to beat the living dren out of you, nurfer…just so you'll be sure to know your place next time you're around real soldiers… and because it'll be fun," the leader told him. "Then we're going to take this little half-breed back to our bivouac and have ourselves a little frell party."

He took another step forward and smiled wickedly at the scout.

"What do you think about that?" he asked.

The scout looked off to one side as if giving the matter serious thought and then turned back with a slight nod to himself. A spit microt later, the scout's metal kit plate struck the artilleryman dead center in the forehead with a resounding smack. The other three men and the serving girl all stood stunned as the squad leader fell to the ground unconscious. None of them had seen the scout move, only the flying disc his plate had become striking its target.

The girl scrambled a short distance away as the scout slowly rose to his feet. He rolled his neck leisurely from side-to-side and then did the same with his arms and shoulders to loosen up his muscles.

The remaining artillerymen looked repeatedly at their fallen comrade and then at the scout.

The single man then gave them a cold grin, the first that any person in the camp had ever seen him exhibit.

What he said next was in a tone that even chilled the half-Nebari girl's blood.

"Let's play."


	3. Chapter 2

Jaleecee, the camp-serving girl, hurried into the sink area of the massive kitchens and washed her hands at the first available tank. If she had eaten just a few arns ago, she was sure she might have become sick.

She had just returned from the muster called to witness the punishment of the scout who had defended her against the drunken artillerymen a few solar days earlier. The brutality of the scene had left her feeling contaminated in some manner, and she was compelled to wash her hands right away if she wished to be rid of the sensation.

The lone soldier who had come to her defense had miraculously beaten all four men in the unit with nothing but his bare hands. The army peacekeepers had shown up just as the last of the gun crew fell face-first into the dust of the campgrounds. They immediately arrested the scout, and the camp commander held a hearing the very next day.

The four artillerymen appeared in various conditions of bandages, splints, and crutches to testify. She herself had been called upon to bear witness to what had occurred.

The four would-be rapists received only a reprimand and a deduction in pay for their conduct, much to her dismay. The scout, because he was a mercenary and had assaulted regular army officers, received twenty lashes with the whip – five for each man he attacked. Her protests at the unfairness of the verdict had fallen on deaf ears. It was a military matter, and there had been no place for the objections of a lowly camp-serving girl.

The punishment was carried out the following afternoon on the firebase's assembly field. Jaleecee had attended against her older brother's wishes, mainly because she felt responsible for the man's situation. Had he not spoken up to protect her, he would not have been place in the position he was in now.

She expected the scout to have approached his flogging with some outside hint of anxiety. Instead, he arrived with his guards and took his place between the twin wooden posts that had been driven into the foot-trampled ground without having to be prompted by his escort. He looked almost as if he had not a concern in the world.

Unbidden, Jaleecee felt her heart flutter at the sight of the man meeting his fate so courageously. He took a moment to inspect his features more closely. His shoulder length hair was unbound by the normal confining braid, making him almost look like something of the wild spirit. At least he would have looked as such if it hadn't been for his eyes. His pale blue eyes looked made of glass, and just as cold.

She found the combination suddenly thrilling… and she knew she was suffering from the onset of a sudden teenage crush, but she didn't care. There had been so little to spark her romantic interest in the camps. Plenty of the men had tried to regale her with tales of their bravery in battle, but they were just words… stories told and embellished to impress a young girl in hopes of some intimate favor. Never before with her own eyes had she witnessed such a chivalrous act as on that day, till then they had only existed in the fantasy sagas she had read. She never dreamed that one day she'd be the 'lady in distress' in a real life story.

The scout had been her hero in the saga. Her rescuer from a fate better left un-thought about. She had a brief flash of fancy, where the two of them might become lovers and run away together.

They would find a place far from there, far from any war. They would live and love, and raise a fine family. She would bear him beautiful children… with her smooth pale-gray skin… and his unique ice-blue eyes.

The fantasy abruptly died as the scout's field-uniform shirt was removed. She felt her heart stop along with the quit murmur of those around her as the man's bare upper body was revealed under the mid-day sun.

From neck to belt-line; the scout's body was a thatch-work of crisscrossing scars.

The fleeting though of secret passion was forgotten and replaced with near heart breaking sympathy that almost made her want to cry. The scout had lived a hard life by the looks of his abused torso. Pain was probably all to common for him, which is why he seemed able to approach his punishment with eerie calm, while other men had to be dragged and secured by manacles to the posts.

Not so her scout.

He merely reached up and took hold of the posts and waited for the flogging to began with no expression on his face. The captain in charge of the punishment detail gave a silent nod, and the sergeant with the whip administered the first lash. The oiled leather cracked the air and left it's bloody mark on the scout's broad back.

His only reaction was a brief tightening of his back muscles, and a slight narrowing of his eyes. The second lash brought no visible reaction at all.

Jaleecee's heart then skipped a beat, how brave her scout was! She wanted to rush over and hold him, knowing that he couldn't last and remain silent for very much longer. She'd heard that no man had ever kept from crying out from pain for more than five lashes. No matter how long he lasted, she wouldn't think any less of him if he broke upon the next lash. He was her hero!

No sound came from the scout on the third lash… nor upon the sixth!

The assembly of fighting men and support personal, muttered in sheer amazement. The scout showed no sign of distress other than his bleeding back. The sergeant paused a moment in bewilderment and caught the captain's eyes briefly. The superior officer merely gave him the signal to continue and the sergeant put the lash to work again.

By the tenth lash stroke, the man should have been screaming and trying to break free of his bounds, the scout simply stood there with his eyes fixed somewhere off into the crowd.

By the fifteenth lash, he should have had trouble even standing. The scout still stood rock solid, hands still gripping the post without benefit of being bound.

As the twentieth and last stroke fell, the assembly was stone quiet. The captain cleared his throat, and with some astonishment in his voice announced to the gathered witnesses that the sentence had been carried out, and that the scout was absolved of all charges.

The man lowered his hands at the announcement and retrieved his shirt from where the guard had placed it. Two medical personal moved forward to assist the scout and examine his wounds, but he waved them off with a hint of irritability. They watched in opened mouth awe as the soldier turned and walked away from them as if nothing had happened.

The assembly likewise parted to let the scout through, turning to watch his bloody shirtless back as he headed toward his quarters.

From her place in the crowd, Jaleecee likewise watched him go, only her young heart soared with the fact that the love of her life was like no other man she'd ever seen… or met.

After washing her hands, Jaleecee quickly gathered some supplies and rushed back out into the camp. She had made it a point to learn during the hearing where the scout was bivouacked, and discovered that he had a tent not far from the mess tents and kitchens.

She headed in that direction now, dodging around small groups of people still discussing the punishment assembly. She had also learned the scout's name – Tessen Korr. The girl turned his name around over and over in her mind, sometimes trying the version of Jaleecee Korr just for size… and found she liked the ring to it.

Her feet carried her to her destination without colliding with anyone or anything while she was distracted with her mental games. Before she knew it, she was standing before the open flap of Tessen's tent.

Nervously she took a step inside and found the man with his back to her as he sorted through clothing on his cot. She bit back a gasp at the close-up view of his marred back.

At the same instant, the man stiffened as he sensed her. He straightened up now holding a fresh shirt in one hand, but didn't turn right away.

"What do you want, girl?" he asked in a low tone that bordered on harsh.

He then turned slightly to glance at her over one shoulder. She briefly wondered how he had known it was her behind him without looking, but he obviously expected an answer to his question right then, so she pushed the thought aside.

"I… I came to help care for your back," the girl told him, and then gestured with the armful of supplies she had brought with her. "I have sterile water to cleanse the lash marks, ointments to help with the healing, and bandages to wrap them in."

He turned then to face her, and her heart did a dance. He wasn't overly bulky like many soldiers, but he was well muscled. Tall and lean, his long mane of nearly black hair made her think of the Dire-wolves that use to roam the woodlands of her homeworld.

"That is not necessary," he told her bluntly. "I am able to care for myself."

She felt her heart sink. She had not expected her offer of care to be dismissed so out of hand. It had taken all her meager supply of courage to get her nerve up and go to the scout's tent, and she was reluctant to let the effort be for nothing that easily.

"Please!" she said as she took another step toward him. "I feel responsible for what happened. If not for me, you wouldn't have gotten into trouble."

"The fault lies with the other soldiers," he replied. "They are the ones who pressed the matter."

"Still… I feel very badly for what happened. Its the least I can do to help you care for your back," she continued. "Especially after what you did for me."

He tilted his head oddly as he regarded her with unblinking eyes for a moment.

"Helping would give you some peace of mind for this imagined debt?" he asked next.

"Why… yes?" she answered with a hint of surprise. "I'd feel a little better then. And I didn't imagine it… I know what those men planned to do with me. I am not a naive child."

His head leveled again and he gave a tiny nod as if agreeing with some thought he'd had.

"Yes, I suppose it would. And no, you are not an inexperienced child. My apologizes."

"Thank you for saying so. Then you'll let me tend to you?" she asked.

"Agreed," he answered oddly. "What do you wish me to do?"

She indicated he was to take a seat upon his cot, while she moved to the opposite side. Tessen did as he was instructed, sitting down stiffly while she set her supplies down and quickly arranged them in order. She pulled the lid off the container of sterile water and was satisfied to find it still warm enough for cleansing wounds.

She poured out a generous amount of warm water into the largest bowl she had brought with her and took up a few of the clean white clothes.

Jaleecee gently moved aside the fall of hair laying down the scout's back, and made a mental note that she would have to wipe the locks clean of the blood that had gotten onto them as well. His back was ramrod straight with some tension, though she didn't know if it was from pain of the lashes… or perhaps it was her presence in his tent that made him somewhat uneasy. She really was unable to tell which it was.

"This may sting a little," she advised as she dipped the first of the clothes into the water. Then chided herself for the silly warning. She had just seen the man take twenty lashes with a whip without flinching, she doubted if he would even notice her cleaning his wounds after that.

"Understood," was his only reply.

She daftly washed away the layer of drying blood and discarded the first cloth. As she dipped the second one in the bowl she was surprised to notice that the lash marks were very slow to refill with new blood.

"They don't seem to be bleeding much anymore," she announced idly.

"I am somewhat of a quick healer," Tessen replied.

She allowed herself to smile at him for the first time, even though with his back to her and he couldn't see it.

"I'm very glad to hear that," she responded with a new lightness in her tone.

Despite the chore, there was something sensual for her with being able to run her hands over the man's bare back. Cleaned up, the whip marks didn't look as bad as she thought they would.

Within moments, the blood had been washed away, and she carefully patted the area dry with a new towel.

"I have to gently rub the ointment into the wounds and surrounding tissue," she advised next as she took up the jar and applied some to her fingertips. "Let me know if this hurts you," she told him.

The scout merely grunted his acknowledgement and she went to work on applying the medication.

Her fingers made light contact at first, and then gradually grew firmer as her patient expressed no discomfort. Despite her honest intentions, she found herself enjoying the smooth feel of his skin and muscle under her hands. Even the old scars were a strange pleasant discovery for her as she found them. Part of her was thinking she could very easily come to know and love each one of them, if given a chance.

She moved on to treating the surrounding tissues, kneading gently over the lash marks and then with more pressure over the rest of the area. Flogging tended to make all the major muscle groups tense she knew, if left unseen to, the victim could find over-stressed muscles cramping up on them days later.

She was delighted to find the scout growing increasingly relaxed under her care as the treatment progressed. By the time she had worked her way up to his shoulders, he appeared to have given himself over to it.

Not knowing where she suddenly got the boldness, her hands abruptly traveled outside the injury area of his upper shoulders, and made their way down his chest. Unexpectedly, Tessen's hands moved up to lightly cover hers, his eyes had a soft far-off focus and he seemed lost in a dream almost, just as she found herself becoming. Without realizing it, she had pressed herself to his back, her hands now exploring instead of massaging aches and hurts away.

She nuzzled her face against the side of his neck and murmured her thanks for his heroics. She was elated when his head tilted slightly to allow her closer, she lowered her glossy black-tinted lips to the base of his neck and kissed where the shoulder joined it.

The effect was electric.

Tessen's eyes snapped opened into sharp focus, and he rocketed to his feet, leaving the girl to tumble into a heap on the ground beside his cot. His face held the look of cold anger, and the half-Nebari girl wilted under his stare.

"I… I… I just wanted…" she began to stutter out.

"Dangerous, girl," the scout warned darkly with a voice that might have come from the grave. "Very… very… dangerous."

Chiana pushed her way through the crowed refreshment house, weaving her way daftly toward the long bar in the rear with more grace than the multitude of dancers on the floor.

She arrived just in time for a spot to clear, and she glided into it. The barkeep served a few other patrons already waiting and then finally made his way over to her. He nodded to indicate she should "name her poison" so to speak.

Instead, the gray girl removed a wooden chit from her pocket and slid it toward the man.

"Saifree Madden," she simply said as the bartender picked up the chit to glance at the series of runes craved into its face. Satisfied, he slid it back over to her.

"Put that away," he said lowly as he picked up a glass and wiped the inside of it with a cloth. "Rear table… by the kitchens," he finished without looking at her again.

Chiana idly thanked him and headed off in the direction he had given her.

Another trip through the crowd brought her to the destination. The refreshment house customers gave the table and the men around it a respectful wide berth. The massive humanoid in the expense silk and black leather suit halted her before she could get too close to the table.

"Shove off, tramp! The boss isn't auditioning new frell toys tonight," the bodyguard told her.

"Good," the Nebari replied loudly enough for those at the table to hear, "I haven't got the time to watch anyway."

A few of the men at the table snickered heartily at her retort, the big thug on the other hand looked very annoyed.

She ignored the big man before her for the moment and directed her next comment to the older humanoid male sitting in the center of the table booth.

"Raydoon sent me. Word is you're looking for a runner."

The older man's bushy eyebrows rose at that.

"Raydoon, you say?" Madden repeated. "All right, I'll bite. Let her over, Stolie."

Chiana grinned. "You heard the man, Stolie… let me over," she told the bodyguard smugly.

The hired muscle grimaced, but before doing as ordered he motioned for her to let him search for weapons before allowing her that close to his boss.

The Nebari raised her hands while Stolie searched through her big gray coat and around her body. He removed her small silver palm pistol, and before he finished, made a point of reaching behind her to give her firm backside a healthy squeeze.

Chiana merely allowed him the grope without visibly reacting in an offended way.

"Hey… nobody gets a feel for free," she said calmly.

Stolie only replied with a nasty leer as he let her finally pass by him.

She walked the rest of the way over as Madden waved for several of the men to leave and make room for her beside him. All the other men left except for one that Chiana recognized from Raydoon's description as KiEel Ry'Balton, Madden's second in command.

"So… Raydoon sent you?" Madden repeated, as he looked her over, head to toe.

"He said you were looking for a talented runner for a job," she answered.

The boss chuckled openly at that, Ry'Balton joined in with a light crony's laugh.

"Is Raydoon playing a joke on old Saifree?" the older man asked a moment later. "How good a runner can a little slip of a girl like you be?" he asked. He eyed her with a new sort of interest in his aged eyes. "I'll tell you what. You go back to Raydoon and tell him it was a good joke. Then you come back here… and I'll give you a new position. Much safer… and with better benefits than being a runner. You like Aquarrian silks and Delvian fire-crystals, girl?"

Chiana leaned in and smiled sweetly at him.

"What I would like, old man… is for you to take your hand off my thigh," she said smoothly, "Before I cut it off."

She emphasized her words by pricking the man's offending hand with the tip of the dagger she held out of sight below the table.

"Oh, a spirited one," Madden replied as he gently with drew his hand. "I adore that in females."

"As long as you adore me from a distance while we're discussing business," she countered while sliding the knife back into her boot top. "You really should get a henchman who knows how to search a person properly," she shot in with a sly look at Stolie.

"Good help is hard to find," Saifree said with a spread of his hands to indicate his helplessness in that regard.

"Which brings me to the reason I'm here," Chiana went on. "Here's your credit pouch back by the way… and your chron… ring… and this goddess awful necklace you had on."

She casually tossed each item into the center of the table as she called them off. Madden did an amusing dance in his seat as he rapidly checked himself for the missing personal items.

Ry'Balton just blinked his eyes in amazement as his boss took back his personal effects.

"Goddess, you are good," Madden said as he replaced everything. "I never felt… or even suspected a thing."

"That's why Raydoon sent me to you. You need a job done that no one else will touch. I'm the runner that can do it for you."

Saifree re-inspected the girl with new respect in his eyes.

"You don't even know what the job is yet," he said.

"I don't care," Chiana responded.

"You should," put in Ry'Balton in a dry voice. "More experienced runners have tried to crack this shell and have ended face up in a hole with dirt in their eyes… or rotting in some PK prison barrage circling a mining asteroid. You might not be up to the job or consequences, girl."

Chiana reached over and took his drink from in front of him.

"You let me be the judge of that, fancy-pants," she replied snidely. She boldly took a swallow from his glass and then made a grimace. "Ugh! How about you live on the edge a little… and splurge on a better vintage than this swill." She pushed the glass back to him with more than a hint of contempt.

Madden exploded with a huge belly laugh.

"I like you girl, you got mivonks the size of a Luxan's!"

A brief flash of something dangerous flittered through the Nebari's dark eyes for an instant at the comment, but it was gone an eye blink later as she forced herself to focus back on the matters and business at hand.

"We'll talk about body parts later," she said with a smile that did not touch her eyes. "What's the job?" she demanded.

Madden glanced for a microt at Ry'Balton, then shrugged.

"It's a heist of some sensitive documents from a business rival of sorts."

"That's it? You want me to snurch some paperwork?"

Ry'Balton cleared his throat. "That is it… but the business rival who has the documents is Clivea Brendal."

Chiana narrowed her eyes. "Where have I heard that name before?"

"Around the commerce port most likely," Saifee supplied. "Brendal is not only my biggest rival in the gambling and prostitution gambits… he is also the chief prosecutor in our justice system."

"And he is running to be elected Regional Governor this half-cycle," Ry'Balton added.

"And you want to get the goods on him for leverage?" Chiana said with a grin.

"Smart girl. Yes, among other things," said the older man.

"No problem," Chiana said a few microts later.

Ry'Balton looked at her with some doubt evident on his features. "You really think you can do it?" he asked.

The gray girl tilted her head and gave him a half-smirk.

"I once help rob a shadow depository," she revealed.

"And lived to tell the tale? I'm impressed, my dear," said Saifree.

She turned her attention back to the headman at the table.

"Well… now that you're suitably impressed… let's talk price for my runner services."

"I'll pay one thousand Krendar when you deliver the goods," Madden informed her.

Chiana chuckled merrily. "Three thousand Krendar… and up front," she countered.

The boss smiled as if he were enjoying the bickering with the young Nebari thief – which he was.

He shook his head good- naturedly. "Two thousand and a third up front," he offered, "And you get to keep whatever else you find in the vault that you can carry, and has nothing to do with the things that I want."

"Two thousand – five hundred Krendar, half up front, plus whatever else I find." She countered again.

Madden broke into a big grin himself as they hit upon an arrangement he could live with.

"Done," he agreed.

"Done," Chiana confirmed with a nod of her head.

Saifree smiled. "What is your name then, girl?" he asked

Chiana looked back at him for an instant.

"You can call me Pixie if you need too," she said, for some reason picking the strange nickname Berret had called her during some for their few happier times.

Ry'Balton raised a finger to break into the negotiation once more.

"There is one other matter," he informed the young Nebari. "Security is rather tight. You may run into armed guards on the property. Guards that have no problem with shooting intruders first and finding out why they are there later."

The girl turned a look on him that gave him an icy feeling along his spine. The girl's impish persona seemed to fade away for that instant.

"Then for their sake, they had better hope they don't run into me."

The comment was delivered with such emotionless; it even made the older man blink twice. The girl's smile reappeared in the next microt, her features returning to the rascally young girl she had been a brief moment before.

She wrote down a quick address and passed it over to the headman.

"I'll be staying at this place. Have one of your people bring me all the information you have on the job. After I look everything over and case the place, I'll get back in touch with you to let you know when its going down," she told them as she slide her way out of the booth. "Have him bring my first half of the money. I may need to pick up a few things for the job."

Madden nodded his head.

"You'll have everything you need and the money by mid-day tomorrow."

"Good," Chiana said as she walked back over to Stolie. She held out her hand for her pistol and the big thug reluctantly slapped it into her palm.

The gray girl slid the weapon back into her belt with a smile and regarded the bodyguard briefly.

Her head tilted to one side and she silently continued to gaze at him curiously.

"What?" the huge man growled roughly as he crossed his massive arms over his chest.

Chiana's head righted itself and her smile turned sweetly innocent.

Faster than the eye could follow, her knee then pistoned up and plowed deeply into Stolie's unprotected groin. The thug's eyes nearly rolled out of his head as he folded nearly in half, both hands looking to cover his injured area a little too late.

Chiana waited a few microts until his head had come down to the right level, and then she smashed him in the face full force with her heavily leather-padded elbow.

Stolie's head cracked around with a snap and he hit the ground unconscious a split microt later.

"I told you nobody gets a feel for free," Chiana said as she stepped over his prone body.

Saifree rubbed his chin as he watched the Nebari leave. A number of the patrons near-by, who had witnessed the small female knock the bodyguard out, respectfully moved out of her way.

"That… is one dangerous tralk," Ry'Balton said from beside him.

"You'll get no argument from me on that account," agreed the older man. "I don't think I'd want to be the one on the bad side of that little hezmana-cat."

"Think she can pull it off?"

"KiEel, I'd be more surprised if she didn't," the headman replied sagely.


	4. Chapter 3

Chiana gasped one last time in pleasure and then rolled off her bedmate.

Usually the warm tingling feeling lasted for a while passed the immediate act of coupling, but now the feeling drained from her almost as soon as she was done. She lay for a moment, staring blankly at the ceiling of her rented room, yearning for even the numb sensation of despair. Wishing she could feel something, anything at all.

Even frustration over the lack of enjoyment for sex would be better than the soul-felt emptiness filling her.

Her current partner felt no such distress, nor was he sensitive enough to notice hers. He lazy reached cross the sheets to her, clumsily groping for her flesh again. What was his name? She tried to recall.

It hadn't mattered much at the time. He was fairly pleasant on the eyes and not too much of a dolt to talk too. She was fairly surprised when she found herself entering a recreation house and requesting to view their stable of male companions. This one had done the least pruning and posing for her attention, so she took him back to her room for the night.

It seemed her taste in male bedmates was running in the strong and silent rather than the eye-candy type lately.

Her still anonymous friend half-rolled closer to her, his searching hand found her firm belly and began to travel seductively upwards. In a brief flash of disenchantment, she found the fire just wasn't there any longer. Instead she had grown cold and detached.

Chiana pushed his hand away with a sigh.

"Get out," she told him.

Her bedmate made a murmur of protest, then whispered a few promises to get her to reconsider. Chiana kicked off the sheets and swung her feet to the floor as she took up her robe and started to slip into it.

"Take your money and go. I'm done with you for tonight," she repeated.

The man frowned, but got dressed as directed. The Nebari ignored him and reached for a package that had been delivered to her that afternoon.

Her hired companion attempted to kiss her one last time before leaving, but the gray girl took him by the arm and escorted him to her door, explaining she had work to do and need to be alone.

Safely locking the door behind the man, she was glad she decided to hire a pleasure attendant rather than attempt to meet some male in a refreshment house for a bit of a distraction. A tavern pickup might have been harder to get rid of in the end.

She returned to her rumpled bed and spread the contents of the packet out over it.

Inside were a stack of printed currency, maps, and a set of instructions. She set aside everything but the credit slips, taking a handheld scanner she ran the device over the plastic sheets. The scanner confirmed the authenticity of the credits, even though her practiced eye had already told her they were real. Still it never hurt to be sure. The savvy gray girl made a mental note to change the currency over into a more universal form as soon as possible, preferably gem stones, as they were easier to conceal and transport.

She set the money aside to be placed in a money belt later for safe keeping until then, once the testing was complete.

Next she took out the maps and instruction sheet and began to read.

The job would be pretty much as she thought when she was through reading. She glanced at the supplied maps and diagrams a few times, making mental notes to herself about facts she wanted to check personally before proceeding. A professional never took client supplied info for fact until checking it out for herself… unless she wanted to end up in prison, or very dead.

In the morning, she would discreetly make a few purchases with part of the front money for some equipment she would need – some legal, some not so legal.

Then she'd make a trip to the job location to look it over with her own eyes, and then tweak the plan accordingly to what she found there. The last step of the planning would include watching the place for a few nights to get guard routines down.

Satisfied she had done all she could for the moment, the gray girl gathered up all the paperwork and bounded it all up in a tight package again. She hated doing it, but she pried up a baseboard in the corner of her room and slid the papers behind it. She tapped the boards back into place and inspected her work. It wasn't noticeable to the casual eye that the boarder framing had been removed.

A good thief never left evidence behind her, but she knew she might have to consult the maps a few more times before the plan was set in stone. It was the lesser of two evils to hide the papers rather than get caught with them on her person or in her belongings.

Once everything was organized and ready, she would destroy any evidence before working the job.

Chiana straightened her bed up a little before lying down to get some sleep. Once under her covers, she drifted off almost immediately.

Her dreams started out as they always had in the last half-cycle. She found herself inside a filthy roughly made Syndicate cell, sweaty males bodies pressing down on her. Something wild and vicious tore through her attackers and she was saved! The joy of rescue and freedom was tinted with the sudden sadness of loss.

Her nightmare intensified as it moved onto another scene; inside a crowed prison… only this time the abusive hands and bodies had their way with her. This time there was no rescue at the last moment.

Her dream flashed forward and she was blind but in D'argo's arms again, here was some elation. Sorrow slammed into her with the loss of John and Aeryn, only to be replaced a heartbeat later by the joy of Berret being alive, and John and Aeryn being returned to them.

The feeling was cut in half just as abruptly as she tossed and turned. Her friend and savior had been restored to her half-mad, and slipping ever further into insanity… and she was powerless to help. Berret destroyed himself rather than submit to what the Syndicate had left inside him, allowing them to escape the PeaceKeepers and Grayza.

But still, D'argo was there… and loved her.

Berret had loved her also, in his own way… and she recalled the bittersweet confusion of having to confront her own feelings for him, and the biting anguish of not wanting to betray D'argo again.

And now the Shrike was truly dead. There was no way he could have survived what he did. Moya and her crew had barely survived.

She dreaded the dreams, just as she did almost every night. But she was unable to stop from reliving them.

D'argo dying in her arms, John dragging her away as she fought to remain with him. Somehow she held onto his Qualta blade as if it were the Luxan himself.

A streak of activity, Crichton making a wormhole amidst the Scarran and PeaceKeeper fleets, and she simply wishing she could fall into it, into oblivion.

Her numbly giving Jothee his father's sword, feeling no longer attached to the world or people around her.

Aeryn and John naming their son after their fallen comrade and her lover. Nights of heart-felt pain so cutting that she swore to herself over and over again that she would never open her heart to another.

Why bother… when everything she loves dies?

A barrage of casual sexual partners, parties, and drug binges – nothing ever erasing the internal torment she was feeling… or worse yet, the unbearable growing occasions when she seemed to feel nothing at all.

Until she had to leave Moya and all her memories behind… or risked losing her mind… or putting her own pulse pistol to her head and pulling the trigger.

Finally, the dreams let her sink into a restless deeper sleep. Here sometimes her visions were less disturbing or she did not remember them at all.

Tonight she briefly found herself revisiting somewhat happier moments. Times with D'argo behind the heavy drapes of her quarters, her brother teasing her over her first crush back home on Nebari Prime, the look of confusion on Berret's face during their first startling kiss. The unexpected presence of love and respect in Crichton's voice and touch as he told her to "pass it on."

It all turned cold within a single heartbeat as she remembered they were all gone… or beyond her reach.

It was better to not love… or feel, her mind told her.

Maybe the enslaved and collared Shrikes had it lucky after all?

The man calling himself Tessen critically eyed the dark powder at the bottom of his glass and then added half a spoonful more to it. Satisfied with the amount, he poured the lukewarm remains of the teapot into the container and used the spoon from his field mess-pack to mix it up.

"I… know what that is," said a hesitant young voice behind him.

"Mind your business, girl," the scout replied without looking.

He lifted the glass and bolted the contents down in a single swallow, trying not to grimace at the gritty taste it left behind despite the Terza tea.

Jaleecee stuffed several more items into the soldier's patrol pack. A sour look graced her youthful face and she decided to press on despite Tessen's admonition.

Its Pa'Looua leaf. I recognize the smell," she said. "It's a natural neural depressant. My SaiDa use to use it to calm our herd stock back home."

The scout ignored her, instead picking up his odd long-barreled pulse rifle and checking it over.

"I've seen you chewing the root of the plant raw sometimes… like the others chew dried meat rations," the girl continued.

"My business," Tessen answered stonily. He picked up an ammo belt next and started to check the charge magazines it held.

Jaleecee twisted her dark lips up into her own grimace.

"I'm not stupid," the girl replied without thinking. "What you just drank now should have been enough to knock a mid-size Brush Steer near senseless. Yet you are still up walking around. How can that be?" She narrowed her eyes for a moment as she uttered the suspicion she had long since had. "You are not Sebacean, are you?"

"What matter of it?" came the dry-toned reply.

"I want to know," countered the girl stubbornly.

Tessen turned and looked at her with a blank expression, and suddenly the half-Nebari girl wondered if her curiosity had finally gotten the better of her. He took a step toward her within the small tent and she feared she might have pushed her luck too far with the man this time.

Instead he merely held out his hand for the field pack she had just finished loading for him. With some obvious relief she handed it over to him.

"Our arrangement is that you care for my quarters while I'm away on patrol, and clean my clothing," he said. "I agree to pay you for your chores. Beyond that, there is nothing you need to know."

Jaleecee's shoulder's drooped. She'd hope to get Korr to share something of him with herself before he left with his unit.

"I just… just want to get to know you is all. Is that something so bad?" she asked.

The scout began to reassemble a pulse pistol he had been cleaning in preparation for the next mission.

"There's nothing more to know. I am what you see, girl. A hired solder."

"Jaleecee…" the camp girl muttered.

"What?" asked the scout idly as he finished assembling the weapon.

The young female huffed in frustration. "Jaleecee!" she near shouted. "My name is Jaleecee, not 'girl'. You never use my name. Why can't you even give me that much?"

The scout half-turned toward her again, and raised an eyebrow in rare mild interest at the outburst.

The serving girl threw her hands up in near total irritation then.

"Half the camp thinks I'm warming your bed… and you've never even said my name, let alone tried to touch me."

Tessen frowned at this, remembering an awkward and unpleasant event when the rumor first surfaced and began to circulate through the camp, when the girl's older brother sought him out and demanded satisfaction for the supposed dishonor his younger sister had suffered. The scout had taken a punch to the head from the half-Nebari boy, but a few hissed reasoning words from Tessen soon ended the altercation before it progressed much further.

That and the fact the soldier was holding the boy by the throat with his feet dangling about six henta off the ground help drive the point home, that Tessen was not sleeping, or doing anything else, with his sister.

"You can tell them, that it is a mistaken assumption," the scout finally countered.

"It doesn't have to be if you want it to."

"We have had this conversation once before," said Korr. "You are still little more then a child."

"I am not a child!" Jaleecee barked. "I am a grown women by my people's customs. On my homeworld I would have been old enough to bond this year. If the Scarrans hadn't invaded, I would surely have been wed by now. My father was a wealthy man, even before he bonded my mother and left Nebari Prime to become a farmer. I had many suitors asking my SaiDa for the honor of having me wear their bonding earring."

A few unnoticed tears were falling from the girl over her vanished future. One of her slim hands involuntarily wandered to her tiny left ear and felt the bare lobe there.

"I am sorry for what you lost," the scout said in a low voice, and found he meant it.

The girl sniffed back a sob and pushed back a lock of long white hair behind the ear she had unconsciously touched.

"Its not your fault," she answered. "But I just want you to know… if you were to ask… I would happily wear your earring if you wanted me." She looked downward for a split microt as she revealed her desire, but her eyes came directly back up and met his a moment later. "I just wanted to say that… to know that at least I had the courage to tell you."

"Jaleecee… I cannot," Tessen replied, with a bare trace of emotion, shockingly more then she had ever seen the man display before that point.

"Why?" she asked in a tiny whisper. "I have seen the way you sometimes glance at me when you don't think I'm looking. I remember that first night I came to your tent to care for your injuries, and you lost yourself for a moment in my arms."

"That was a mistake," he said to her.

"Why was it?"

"It is… complicated. I am not what you think I am."

Jaleecee shook her head and reached out to lightly touch his arm. "What? That you are not perfect?" she asked. "No one is. Even though I don't really know you… my heart tells me, 'Here is a good man. Here is a man who will always do what is right, no matter what'."

Strangely, Korr's pale eyes held a sudden look of dread.

"You are so very wrong," he said in barely above a whisper in turn.

"Because you're a soldier? Men fight when they have to," she responded.

"Being a soldier is the least of my sins."

The girl looked at him for a moment, and then blind-sided him with her next comment.

"Or maybe its who you came to this place to forget?" she asked. "You think of her sometimes when you look at me."

"What?" he asked, too late to temper the touch of surprise in his tone.

"I can tell… I know that I remind you of someone. Will you please tell me who it is?"

Tessen unconsciously glanced away from the young woman.

"There is…was… no one," he insisted.

Jaleecee shook her head in skepticism. "You're not being truthful, this I know. Call it a woman's intuition if you might. But you are not the first man to ever become a mercenary because of a broken heart. Just know this… I am not her, and I would never hurt you like she did. No matter what may come."

Tessen looked lost deep in his thoughts for a moment.

"She never hurt me," he murmured a few microts later.

His voice had barely spoken the words aloud, but the gray skinned girl heard his comment plainly. A deep part of her had dread possibly hearing the confirmation of her recent suspicions, that her scout's heart might truly belong to another. Still she steeled herself and pressed on, there was always hope she in turn could win that other woman's place if she but had the patience and fortitude.

"Its alright," she prompted. "You don't have to cover up for her. You can talk to me about it whenever you wish. I will always have an ear and shoulder for you. I promise."

Something hard flickered behind the scout's blue eyes.

"… No," he said, his voice turning toward cold and flinty.

"But it's okay…" the girl started to cut in.

"No," Korr said a bit harder. "No, you do not understand. She had never done a thing to harm me…"

"But…"

Tessen cut her of this time. "It was me," he said abruptly. "I was the one who wronged, hurt, her. She did nothing but show me kindness… and friendship. To her I owe my life… and I betrayed her."

Jaleecee's dark eyes flew open in amazement at the unexpected confession. Her mouth slowly dropped open as the shock began to wear off. This is what she had hoped for over the last few weekens, to learn something of who he was.

"At every turn, I disappointed. With every simple request, I failed her. With every word, a callous lie. At every opportunity, I showed her the blackness I harbor inside of me." Strangely, a tiny smile of disenchantment graced the man's tight lips; a disillusionment that she knew was directed at himself. "When she was happy, I silently wished she was not. When she trusted me… I betrayed her without thought. When she finally asked for my embrace… I turned my back on her."

The soldier stared off somewhere; gazing at a view only he could see.

"Are you familiar with the fable of the Moxxal and the Sha-paar?" he asked oddly.

"Yes," the girl answered with a slightly confused nod of her head. "After the Moxxal carried the Sha-paar on his back across the river, the Sha-paar fatally stung him anyway, because…"

"…Because it was his nature," Tessen finished for her. "And that is also my nature."

"But that is just a children's allegory."

"It is also a lesson concerning life," the scout told her. "Trust me not, girl. Deceit and treachery follow in my wake. I must be that which I have been forged into. I am forever to be what I was made."

Jaleecee wrinkled her brow as she turned his somewhat confusing words over in her mind. Several counter debates offered themselves, but each time she went to speak one of them, another negative thought arose and made her discard them. There was something there in what he had told her, if only she could see beyond the veiled meaning into the truth.

Tessen tilted his head and saw the girl mutely working her mouth for a few microts, but no words would leave her.

"So you see why your infatuation is pointless, " he continued. "This is what sort of being I am. The type of man I truly am, not the fantasy you have built. I will always do the things that hurt those around me and that I can never change. I tell you this now, so you will know. And finally realize that you deserve better than someone like me."

Jaleecee's mouth had gradually closed as she digested his revelation. Just then she was regarding the scout with a guarded expression that gave none of her thoughts away. She would worry at this new information until it made more sense to her. Like a puzzle, he had offered up a part of himself that she needed to solve.

Tessen himself chose to take her silence as acceptance of his words. "I do not wish to ever talk of this further," he added

He picked up his pack, gear, and rifle and headed for the doorway of his tent. Before he stepped through, he turned back to the girl once more.

"I shall see you when my patrol returns," he said. "That is, if you still desire to keep our business arrangement." With that said, he exited the bivouac and was gone.

Jaleecee remained where she was for a few more moments and turned over in her head what she had just learned. Korr may have not realized it, but he had just given her a deeper insight into his being then he probably intended. She now suddenly thought she understood the reason for him to have undergone the flogging for saving her, when he could have just as easily left the camp instead. As all hired mercenaries were free to come and go as they pleased.

At first she had thought he endured the punishment because he would have lost any monetary gain he had earned by withdrawing under charges of assaulting a field officer. Now she considered she understood more clearly.

Tessen had endured the flogging because he felt he should be punished for whatever things he had done to that other woman. Perhaps, Jaleecee mulled over, Tessen believed his prior acts so horrific that not allowing himself to return a simple camp-girl's affections served as another form of self-chastisement.

She got up and went to the doorway of the tent and glance out into the firebase grounds. Tessen had already disappeared somewhere into the mob of soldiers and support personal moving about the encampment.

Another thought hit her and made her bite her lower lip almost till the point of bleeding.

What if her scout had joined the war as a convenient way to end his existence, fighting only because he had a death wish over what he had done? What if one of these days he succeeded and he didn't come back from patrol? What if that day turned out to be today?

Jaleecee forced herself to stop gnawing at her lip and spent the rest of the day deep in worry.

Istrish ducked her head and entered the dim underground bunker that served her ragtag group as a combination common room, staging area, and war-room. Another Sykaran, this one a male, turned from his place at the main table and idly raised one maroon-colored hand in greeting.

"Hail, Marktaal, she said pleasantly to the man. "How is our guest fairing this morning?"

Marktaal merely grunted noncommittally at first, but before he could reply further a sharp amused bark issued from the other side of the makeshift table in the center of the room. A stout Vorcarian male Istrish had not noticed as she entered the room spoke up.

"He is in his usual ungrateful mood," the Blood Tracker replied, then with a toothy grin added, "I told you, it would have been best to have eaten him."

Despite the grim words, Istrish allowed herself a grin. Most Vorcarians were slow-witted by nature, but Horgo was a rare exception. The red-eyed tracker was extremely intelligent and cunning, whether that was a side effect of what he once was – what they all had been at one time – or a genetic abnormality, she wasn't really sure.

The female Sykaran however was sure that Horgo was joking about devouring their unexpected guest… at least she was mostly sure he had been jesting.

"I shall keep that in mind," she responded with amusement.

"Good," Horgo said gruffly, and then went back to working on whatever it was he was doing when she entered the headquarters.

She made her way across the room to a draped off section of wall. Behind other areas of hanging cloth were sleeping or private areas for other members of her group. She was only concerned with who was behind this particular curtain for the moment. Before sweeping the fabric aside, she paused for a microt to clear her throat loudly to warn the occupant inside.

Istrish slowly slid the drape to one side and was reward by seeing the opened eyes of their guest gazing up at her from his sleeping mat.

She smiled brightly at seeing him awake and fully alert for a change.

"And how are you this day, young warrior?" she asked with genuine interest.

The Luxan frowned up at her and moved stiffly as he rearranged himself on the low mat.

"About the same as yesterday, Istrish. Like dren," he answered.

"Your color is much improved, Ka' Dargo," she said next. "You are very lucky for a man who had one foot through death's door when we found you."

"And I owe you and your companions a great debt of gratitude for saving me," the Luxan rumbled. "The wounds I received should have killed me."

Istrish smiled again. "And indeed they might have if Marktaal hadn't injected you with the med-tech microbes we have been developing."

D'argo absently rubbed at the still healing scars on his chest and frowned deeply once more.

"I'm not sure I enjoy the idea of having been used as a test subject… but I am glad they worked. I only wish the recovery time did not take so frelling long."

She moved inside the room and sat upon a large pillow by the side of his bed to make herself comfortable.

"They are not an exact science yet and you still nearly died on us several times," Istrish added. "But be patient, as you are completely safe here with us."

"I am not use to such long stretches of inaction," the warrior told her. "Have you found my friends yet?" he asked. "I want to get word to them of my survival as soon as possible."

The woman's smile drooped for an instant but then reinserted itself. Her guest had asked that same question everyday since he was strong enough to speak once more. And everyday she had the same answer for him.

"We have yet to hear anything about their whereabouts. As you know we also currently searching for one of our number, and our resources are limited as far as the ability to gather intelligence. We are not yet strong enough to defend against our enemies, so we must be careful and remain hidden from those that hunt us."

"I know… the Black Syndicate would have rewards for you and your comrades," replied D'argo with a grim nod. "Especially after your part in killing all those Scarrans."

"Our numbers grow each weeken. Slowly, but they still grow," she supplied.

D'argo narrowed his eyes for a moment, then said, "I have watched the comings and goings of your people here, and I always see the same five. And occasionally a visitor who never remains long."

Istrish graced him with a smile. She had a feeling the Luxan was more aware of his surroundings when he first awakened than he had let on.

"We keep our numbers in small cells on this planet and several other nearby worlds. We gather in full strength only to carry out a operation," she explained. "None of us knows where every other cell has their sanctuary. That way if one or a few of us are recaptured by our oppressors, they cannot give the whole network away."

The Luxan nodded sagely. "A wise precaution."

"And a tactical one," she added.

The warrior chewed at his lower lip in thought.

"Can I ask, how do you go about recruiting your members? It cannot be easy to persuade Shrike Enforcers to leave their Syndicate Houses to join you."

The woman bowed her head in agreement. "That is why we target only collared Shrikes, the ones that are unwilling slaves. We have become quite adept at removing Scarran neural collars quickly. Once rid of the device we give the freed Enforcer a choice – They can either take their chances at freedom on their own or join us. The wise ones join, as the others on their own are normally quickly hunted down then recaptured or destroyed by their former masters."

"The Syndicate cannot be very pleased with your activities," D'argo commented.

"They certainly are not," Istrish replied with a dark chuckle. "That is why we all have a heavy price on our heads within the underworld."

"Why not just leave then? Forget the fighting and go where the Syndicate can't find you?"

Istriash sadly smiled and took his large hand within hers.

"Where it that easy," she said. "I have been at this too long and my old House knows my identity… as I am one of the first of us to be freed from slavery. There is only one other who has been rogue longer than I, and it was he who freed me. I owe it to him to continue to liberated others… until he returns to pick up the reins of leadership once more."

"Is he the one you and your people have been searching for?" the big Luxan asked.

"Yes… the one who started this all. Who began to free the Shrike assassins and forged us into weapon to be turned against our former masters."

"Where is he?"

"Sadly, I do not know. Shortly before we discovered you, he left. It appeared his heart had grown heavy and he lost his will for the fight. A few of us vowed to carry on, increasing our numbers as best we can and waiting for him to find his way back to us again."

"Your leader abandoned you!" D'argo said with growing disbelief. "A Luxan commander would never…"

"No! You misunderstand," the red-skinned girl broke in. "He never wanted to be our leader. In fact he denounced such at every opportunity. He was the first to be freed as I said, he freed me and together we freed others… and they went on to free more as they could. He taught us what he knew for us to survive and strike back. We stayed and followed him by choice. When the war between the Scarrans and the Peacekeepers came, we attacked covertly where it would hurt the Scarrans and the Syndicate's interest the most. We were very successful in our endeavors… until something happened to our leader."

D'argo's frown grew ever slowly as he listened to the tale.

"What happen?" he asked.

Istrish's lips turned downward themselves with that question.

"I am not exactly sure. It was around the time that we intercepted a Scarran communiqué. A report that had to do with the capture of you and your comrades."

The warrior's eyebrows shout upward in surprise. "What would that have to do with your leader abandoning your group?"

"I don't know, but something seemed to sap the will out of him… as if he bore some great burden nothing could lift from his shoulders. Before he left to travel his own way, he requested that we be on the look out for you and your crewmates, and to assist you if we were able."

His brows twisted into a dark knot. "Why did he want that? What was his name?"

"Not many of us remember our real names prior to serving the Black Syndicate. I am one of the lucky few that do," she explained. "Our leader went by the name, Sinn. I am not sure if that was his real name as he never bothered to tell me."

The Luxan mauled the information over within his memory but could not come up with anything familiar.

"I cannot remember our group ever encountering anyone calling themselves 'Sinn'. Are you positive he went by no other name?"

Istrish gave him a one-shoulder shrug. "That was the name he went by while he was with us. I can recall only his Syndicate House Enforcer designation. We were all given them in order to dehumanize us."

"What was it? It's a long shot but perhaps it will help," D'argo suggested.

Istrish thought for a few microts.

"I believe it was Enforcer 457 of High House Arckatius," she supplied a moment later.

D'argo nearly choked. His stomach turned cold with dread at the same time his blood became to boil with rage.

"Shrike 457!" he near growled.

"Yes, that is also another alternative to his designation," she answered with some curiosity.

"Berret!" he then spat.

Istrish then shook her head. "I have never heard that name before," she replied. "What is wrong, D'argo?" she asked with some concern. She had grow to like the Luxan very much over the last few weekens and it disturbed her to see him abruptly so agitated. Her hand wandered upward to pat his chest to calm him.

The Luxan ignore the question in favor of one of his own. "Sebacean male, about six samat tall? With strange blue eyes that change silver.

Istrish found herself blinking in surprise. "Yes," she exclaimed, then quickly glanced over her shoulder to be sure no one was hovering nearby to over hear them. "Yes, he is one of the few augments to have survived also," she continued in a whisper when she turned back to him. "How did you know? I had though I was the only one to share that secret?"

"Frelling dren!" D'argo swore to himself. "And you say he was with you just before the battle between the Scarran and Peacekeepers… where you found me dying?"

"Yes. He left us almost two weekends before the battle."

"Not frelling possible!" D'argo nearly shouted.

"Why? What do you mean? How is that not possible?" she asked in confusion and growing worry.

"Because I saw that frelling bastard die half-a-cycle before that battle ever happened!"


	5. Chapter 4

The crowd roared approval as his sickle-knife hooked in and tore through his opponent's triceps muscle, slicing through and rendering his dangerous weapon-wielding arm useless. The masked pit-fighter's own relatively un-bloodied knife dropped from suddenly dead fingers to the now blood-splattered mat. The combatant's free hand automatically clutched at the new wound in an attempt to stanch the flow of blood, knowing he was decisively beaten by the other, the fighter dropped to one knee before the victor.

"Yield!" the wounded man called, as per the match's rules.

Sinn silently snarled at his rival, he couldn't recall the other pitman's stage name, but that didn't matter. What did matter at that instant was the screaming in Sinn's own head, the specter wouldn't be deprived of its kill, rules or no rules… the path to blood called and wouldn't be denied. A far-away part of him knew he had become out of control, the mixture of Pa'Looua herb seem to be failing, its effects no longer anesthetizing the collar pathways left in his brain and nervous system. His microbe augmentation raged unrestrained, burning its way through his body like a plasma fire

Sinn shrieked his fury and viciously seized the other man's pit mask by the decorative tassel on the helmet part, yanking the other's head backward, he slit his throat before he could even attempt to defend himself. A Referee entered the ring to protest the illegal match killing and Sinn turned his blade to gutting the official for his troubles. The new body hit the mat with the sickening sound of wet dead meat

The spectators reacted with displeasure, booing and jeering as he bent to pick up his opponent's fallen blade. The voice told him he didn't have to stop the killing with just those inside the ring. The audience offered a whole new playground of bloodshed and death.

He left the mats and brought new terrible screams from the crowd.

Tessen Korr jerked awake to find himself back in his bivouac. A light sheen of sweat pasted his military undershirt to his lean muscled frame as he sat up and swung his legs over the side of his cot. He rubbed hard at his eyes, feeling the masses of scar tissue on his back and chest pull taunt from the force he exerted in his attempt to banish the drags of visions.

The soldier had various versions of this dream, of similar events that never truly happened to him when he was a pit-fighter. They were growing almost as troublesome as the nightmares he had of things he really had done. He supposed they were based in a fear that the Pa'Looua leaf concoctions would stop working all together to impede his slide into the collar's madness.

"What's wrong?" asked a sleepy voice from the darkness on the other side of his cot.

Korr nearly jumped out of his skin. The dream had disoriented him enough that he hadn't realized she was there. Worse yet, the brief flash of pale skin caught out of the corner of his eye made his mind leap to thoughts of another sallow-skinned woman for just a bare instant, before reality inserted itself again in his consciousness.

"What are you doing here, girl?" he nearly growled. Silently he uttered a harsh Scarran curse that he'd been caught off-guard by his wandering mind. Turning only slightly, he could then see Jaleecee had made herself a bed of blankets on the ground by his cot.

"I thought after your mission, you might need something later tonight," she explained. "So I stayed in case you needed me."

Tessen had arrived back at the main camp late that afternoon from a three-day patrol to find that the girl had chosen to keep their business arrangement intact. However, he noticed a certain increase in intensity in the way the server scrutinized him, which he found mildly annoying.

The fighting on this last tour had been unusually heavy with little time to rest or sleep in the field. He had taken only minor wounds, which his augmentation had rapidly healed while still in the field. Like the rest of the unit, Korr had been more exhausted than usual upon return, especially with having to deal with the microbes' demands on his system. The last thing he remembered was thankfully eating a meal the serving girl had prepared for him and then seeking the welcomed oblivion of his cot.

"Your brother will not be pleased with you remaining here," the scout countered. "And I do not wish to have another 'discussion' with him about you."

The girl frowned at him. "I told Kenrikk that I would be remaining here tonight… and I do not need his permission to do as I see fit," she reminded him. "We have a private employment agreement for care of your quarters and living needs, and I will execute my duties as I deem necessary to fulfill my end of the arrangement," she continued on in a business-like manner.

"Girl… is there anybody you do defer too?" asked the soldier with a hint of despondency about him. "You obviously ignore everyone that I can think of."

The half-Nebari girl rose up further from her makeshift bed to glare at him, Tessen wondered if she were going to bristle about his refusal to call her by her given name again. He'd already decided that he was going to keep the serving girl at arm's length whether she liked it or not. Forming a close bond of any sort with her would only bring pain in the long run. Pain to him and even more pain to her. Killing soldiers at war, or fighters in the pit was one thing. Harming another innocent was a further taint he didn't want to add to his already blackened soul.

She would always just be 'girl' to him if he had anything to say about it.

"I am of age to run my own household, which by tradition on my homeworld is the woman's sole domain… I do not need a male giving me instructions about anything," she told him stonily.

"The why don't you find yourself one of these young Officers to bond too, and run his household?" Tessen asked.

"Perhaps I would, if there was one here I thought worthy to take the bond with. One does not plan affairs of the heart like a war game," the young girl lectured, "They happen as they may."

"You watch too many of those romance holos," the scout responded carelessly.

"I do not," Jaleecee defended firmly, and with as much dignity as a young person could muster. "And I will not be having this discussion with you right now. You are exhausted and in a foul mood."

Korr gave a short, dry, humorless chuckle despite his annoyance.

"Girl, haven't you been paying attention?" he said, "I am always in a 'foul mood'."

"That is not always so," the server put in. "At least not as much as you like to pretend to be. But now, that you're awake again, do you wish me to get you anything?" she then asked.

He had not realized it till that moment, but Tessen discovered he was in fact hungry again… and for once it was a true natural hunger and not one driven by microbial cravings.

"Hummm..." he said, stubbornly not liking the idea of giving so easily in to the equally stubborn girl. But a stomach growl overruled his cantankerous nature for the moment. "Do you have anymore of that roast left?" he forced out.

The girl's face suddenly lit up in a smile for him.

Chiana peered at the darken residence through a pair of night-vision occulars, pausing every now and then to jot something down in a special code she had designed into a small notebook strapped to her thigh. She had been perched in the upper limbs of a tree on the property's boarder for over three arns now. Over twenty samat above the ground, the slight swaying of the tree barely register on her mind as she made her careful notes on what she observed.

She used the occulars to save several snapshot holos of the home that she thought might be useful for review later. The Nebari paused to check her chron and discovered it was nearly time to meet one of her connections. The thief closed her notebook, double checking that she had secured its cover firmly, and then leaping from limb to limb like an acrobat, made her way silently to the ground.

Once down, she adjusted her long gray coat around her slim frame and pulled a matching scarf up to cover her head as she moved away from her target and down a maze of dark streets.

It wasn't long before she reached the throbbing business section of town; businesses and refreshment houses were booming even still at this late, or early if you will, arn in the morning. Passing by one tavern that was popular with the younger crowd, a group of male patrons were hanging around outside.

Obviously drunk and looking to stir up a good time, one made the mistake of grabbing Chiana's arm as she walked by, demanding she come have a drink with him, and making it clear he wouldn't be taking 'no' for an answer.

Without breaking her step, she drew the dagger from her boot-top and used it to spear through the palm of his hand. The blade broke his grip on her arm, and a quick flick of her wrist ripped the sharp blade out through the webbing between his middle and ring finger – splitting the offending hand neatly in two.

The unfortunate would-be suitor began shrieking and running around holding onto his maimed hand while his intoxicated friends merely laughed at the spectacle.

Chiana returned the knife to her boot and kept walking on. Another time, in another life, she might have enjoyed a stop into the refreshment house, but she had more important business to take care of that night.

Another time she also might have balked at having committed such a cold and casual maiming to an immature youngster, when she just as easily could have used her wiles to have manipulated him to her will, and turned him away… after cleaning out every credit he and his friends had between them.

But she found she couldn't care much about that either.

The fleeting night called and her mind turned solely again to her concern at hand, her boots clicking lightly on the pavement as she headed to her destination – the unlucky drunken lad already forgotten.

Less than a half arn later she was in a dimly lit backroom with her contact. The Nebari retrieved her small notebook and she deftly tore out the last sheet of scribe-fiber she had written on, and slid it across the scared counter-top to the Palatetian trader waiting on the other side.

"Can you get me everything on this list?" Chiana inquired in a voice that was close to toneless.

The male shop owner took a few microts to scan the handwritten list of items, idly scratching at his over large split chin as he did so. The end of his jaw with it's cleft, like all Palatetians, reminded the gray thief of someone's eema. At one point she would have found the facial feature humorous, now she only found it annoying because of its distraction factor.

The dry skin flaking off the jowl area due to the trader's scratching action next brought a brief look of disgust to Chiana. The man's personal hygiene was poor – even for one of his people.

"Some of these items I have on hand," the Palatetian informed her a moment later. "Some of these items I will have to procure from other of my sources. All of these items – will be expensive."

"I don't give a frell about the price," Chiana told him, "Have the rest of what I want here by tomorrow night or the deal is off."

The shop owner bobbed his head. "I will have all you asked for here by this time tomorrow," he confirmed. "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

The girl thought a moment, and then decided there may be something else to look into while she was there.

"Yes, let me see what you have in the way of weapons," she said.

"Pulse, static energy, plasma, or slug-thrower?" he asked.

The girl shook her head.

"Bladed," she replied. "Something that won't be picked up by energy scanner or magnetometer."

The trader asked her to wait a moment while he went into his storeroom. The Nebari thief did as he requested knowing it would probably take him several microns to retrieve his illicit stock from wherever he had it concealed. He returned holding a large dusty roll-up case, which he set on the counter and flicked the case open for her. Inside were a number of knives, daggers, stabbing spikes, and other edged weapons – all made out of non-metallic material – and all highly illegal to possess under Peacekeeper law.

She spend several moments inspecting each item, but none she found any better than the current metal dagger she had concealed inside her boot top. She was just about to ask the repulsive trader if he had anything else available when something in the very last pocket of the roll-up case caught her eye.

She pulled the unrecognizable object out to find it was a length of tough duraplastic about eight and a half henta long and a little over one henta wide. There were several adjustable leather straps located along the length of the item as well.

"What's this?" she queried.

The Palatetian waved a dismissing hand at the item in question. "I had forgotten that was in there," he responded. "That is an old swing-blade, very archaic, no one uses them anymore."

"What's it made of?"

"Duraplastic steathing, leather straps with Krillsh bone buckles to fasten it to the bottom of your forearm. Blade is made of Xevllium ceramic, non-metallic, which is why it was in this case, but hard as hull grade steel – which makes it a dominar's bitch to sharpen."

"How's it work?" Chiana then asked.

The shopkeeper showed her how to properly strap the weapon on and the trick to operating the blade. With the sheath securely under her forearm, she found that ceramic blade quickly telescoped out in three sections. The twelve henta long blade snapped open in two and the smaller length handle that slid naturally into the waiting palm of her hand.

The swing-blade reminded her most closely of one thing in particular – the brace blades of a Shrike Enforcer.

"Berret," she found herself breathing out lowly without thinking as she gazed at the weapon.

"Pardon?" the trader asked.

Chiana shook her head to clear it of the unexpected trance. "Nothing…" she replied. _He was dead_, she affirmed silently, _the dead don't matter._ "How much to you want for it?" she asked.

The Palatetian twisted his rubbery lower lip with his stubby fingers in thought.

"I will tell you what," he said as he scribbled a credit amount on the back of the slip of fiber that held her list. "Agree to this amount for your other items and I will throw that old swing-blade in for free."

Chiana glanced down at the sheet as he pushed it toward her. The amount written there was toward the higher side of what she expected to pay for her equipment, but still acceptable.

"Done," she said. The trader smiled and drew the paper back toward him. The girl retracted her new blade back into its forearm sheath and slid her gray over coat back on over it. "I will be back to get my other things tomorrow," she said as she moved toward the back door of the shop. "You will get your payment then."

"Perhaps we can negotiate a further price reduction tomorrow evening if you are interested," he said with a meaningful leer just as her hand touched the door latch. "I can close my shop early."

The girl stopped and threw him a glance of soul dead eyes over her shoulder.

"Old man… it would be in your best interest not to push your luck," she warned in a cold tone.

The trader shrugged as if to say, 'I tried', just as the door closed behind the girl. He was use to being threatened by dangerous people in his line of work… but never by one so beautiful as well.

Crichton gazed out the large center chamber port at the world below him. Hyneria wasn't a bad place to visit, if you didn't mind the humidity. The planet was eighty-percent water with four main continents connected by numerous chains of small islands.

It reminded him closely of Earth, and somewhere down below, Rygel was reclaiming his throne.

A quite boot step behind him told him he was no longer alone.

"Is he asleep?" he asked with a smile from his preach on the port's sill without turning.

On the nearly deserted leviathan it could only be one other person.

"He just nodded off," Aeryn confirmed as she came up close behind him. She intimately slipped her arms around his shoulders and neck, no longer self-conscious of showing public affection for the human.

John reveled in the embrace of his new wife, his own hands rising up to meet and hold her hands and arms to him.

"That's good," he murmured.

They both started silently out at the planet below them.

"What are you thinking about?" Aeryn inquired.

"Nothing… everything," he replied a few microts later. Aeryn merely grunted that she understood his mood.

"I'm thinking about how empty Moya has been lately," he continued on a moment later. "Zhaan and Dargo are gone, Jool too. Noranti and Rygel are down below busy putting Sparky back on his throne. God only knows where Stark went. Hell… believe it or not, I'm even missing Scorpy."

"Things change, John," Aeryn said, "They always do. You told me that."

"Yeah… I did, didn't I? I just wish they wouldn't change so much. We lost so many good people getting here."

"Like Talyn and Crais?" his wife asked.

"Yeah, Hon… even them," he confirmed.

"I wonder how Pip's doing?" he added a few microts later.

Aeryn's lips turned downward into a frown, but not one of disapproval, this frown was one of sadness.

"Chiana made her choice to move on," the ex-Peacekeeper reminded gently.

"I know, Aeryn," Crichton agreed. "But she was in such a bad way when she left."

"She wasn't happy here… not anymore."

"We didn't do much to fix it."

"What could we have done?" Aeryn asked. "You of all people should have learned by now you can't always saved the universe."

John sighed deeply. "That doesn't make it any easier to take."

"No. It doesn't," the Sebacean woman agreed. "But I also think that Chiana did what she had to do. Time away by herself may be what she needs to heal."

"I guess you're right."

"I usually am," she told him with a tiny smile.

Crichton hugged her arms tighter to him. " I just wish that I knew for sure that she was healing. She just lost so much. First her brother, than D'argo."

"We all still feel his loss, John."

"Pip even lost… that other," Crichton added next after some thought. Aeryn stiffened slightly behind him.

"He was insane, Crichton," she reminded. "And he wasn't going to get better. It ended for the best. At least he died somewhat honorably in the end."

"Yeah," the human replied absently, his mind slightly someplace else in thought. "But he still loved her in his own twisted way. That's a hellva thing for the kid to have to lose, despite who or what he was."

Aeryn paused a moment to consider his words. She had come close herself to losing John and the baby so many times and she briefly found herself reliving those moments of fear again. Moments that their young crewmate had been, and was still mostly likely, living over and over again wherever she was.

"I think you're right about that too," she told her husband finally. "Chiana has had more than her fair share of tragedy in her life."

"Guess so," he agreed. He turned around so he could look her in the eyes. "I've been thinking, Ryg and Grandma really don't need us here for anything. Why don't we go talk to Pilot and see if he and Moya are interested in taking a cruise around to see if we can find Chi? Nothing serious… just to check up on her to see if she's okay… then we'll go on and mind our own business."

Aeryn ran her hand through the back of his hair and gave him a genuine warm smile. She had been worried about the young Nebari also for the last several weekens.

"I see no harm in that," she told him.

John returned her smile with a new light of purpose in his eyes.

_One Weeken Later…_

The dark figure waited until the lone sentry moved passed its hidden position. The guard continued on his lazy way, patrolling the inside of the camp compound on a boring routine duty. As soon as it was clear, the figure scooted across the way to the vehicle storage pool, and continued on deeper into the deserted yard.

Once far enough away to prevent discovery, the figure unpacked several lengths of rod and quickly screwed them together. Attaching a small power pack to the assembly finished the high-gain antenna.

He snapped the cable feed to his personal hand-comp and the signal-detection icon told him of the incoming decoded message.

"This better be good!" he snapped irritably. He'd had a hard enough time finding a way to slip away after receiving the call that a message from his contact required his attention. "This contact is a huge risk to my current cover," he nearly growled out.

"Indeed it is, slave," said a rough scaly voice on the channel.

The operative swallowed hard in shock.

"My lord, forgive me… I did not know it would be you," he replied with growing fear.

"Cease your groveling, I care little for it," spat the voice back. "I have for you another assignment, one much more important than your current one.

The figure blinked in surprise.

"My lord," he said before he could think better of it. "You are aware of who I have discovered here besides the designs of my original task?" He immediately shuddered at realizing he'd interrupted the head of his organization.

"You mean Arckatius's rogue, the rebel leader," the Scarran said matter-of-factly. "I am well aware of his presence and he will keep until later. The task I may require of you makes a rogue Shrike, rebel or not, pale in comparison."

"Yes, lord," he replied, silently thankful that his overlord had chosen to overlook his blunder of just a few microts before. Agents of his house had died for far less.

"Our spies have learned that someone more valuable may come within our reach of our territory in just mere solar days. When we are sure of this person's location, you may be required to leave your current assignment at a microt's notice… no matter what you are doing or what it costs the project. You will get to your ship and go directly to the coordinates that will be supplied to you then. Is that clear?"

"Yes, my lord. Perfectly."

"Excellent," the voice hissed. "You will discuss this with no one, not even your handler. Your directives come from the house consul and myself only on this matter. You will receive this call icon on your hand-comp." The figure glanced down and saw the Scarran script on his comp's screen for a moment before they faded away. "Once at your craft, you will be given further orders and the coordinates. Any questions?"

"No. None, my lord."

"Very fortunate," the Scarran replied icily. "End transmission." And he was gone. The figure sighed in relief and began breaking down his gear, wondering what was going to happen next.

And what could be so important that he'd have to abandon his current task and the possibility of bringing in a rogue Enforcer from a rival High Syndicate House?

He stored his equipment and slipped into the shadows, to make his way back to his unit's bivouac and his cover identity. Ready to continue on with his on-going operation.

Waiting to see if the call from his master to something new would ever come.


	6. Chapter 5

Haze sipped at the dregs of his morning cup of klunchu and discovered the beverage had grown cold. He scowled in distaste, the grimace making him appear momentarily older and more hardened than he really was, before dumping the bitter remnants into the fire pit by his booted feet.

Across the morning fire, AcRooks ignored him while he fiddled with a small kit mirror as he ran a neer-stone over the night's stubble on his cheeks to remove it.

The third soldier sharing the small campfire was a man named Satuur. While not particularly having a reason, Haze found he didn't care much for Satuur. It wasn't that he wasn't a good soldier, as the Private certainly was. Or that the man couldn't be counted on in combat, as Satuur had proven himself reliable on many occasions when the pulse bolts flew and grunts went into harm's way.

Satuur just struck him as wrong. The man had an air about him that Haze could not define, but it hinted greatly that the soldier should not be fully trusted. Talking with Satuur always left Haze feeling as if the other had some deep secretive agenda that only Satuur knew about.

Not being able to specifically point his finger at any one solid thing for his feeling about Satuur, Haze simply tolerated the man, just as he was at this morning's fire.

As usual, AcRooks simply did not see an obvious cause for finding fault in the older Private, and accused Haze of being overly suspicious of any being the corporal hadn't personally grown-up with, before dismissing his mistrustful view.

Haze found himself frowning at his friend as another subject of their prior debates step into view across the parade ground from their fire.

It was that odd scout, Korr… being tailed by that half-Nebari serving girl.

AcRooks didn't take his recent thoughts about that man seriously either. Which Haze found very annoying, as it was AcRooks's prior obsession with the scout that started Haze pondering him. The other Corporal for some reason had lost interest in Tessen. Haze simply chalked it up to the other man's short span of attention. Still, the scout's oddness now teased his thoughts.

He crossed his arms and took the opportunity to settle back and observe the mercenary further. It also took his mind off of Satuur's presence for a while as a side benefit.

The girl followed behind the tall scout, and though Haze couldn't possibly hear their discussion, it was obvious that the gray skinned female was in a flutter over something the man had done.

She waved her arms exasperatedly as Tessen, plainly paying no heed to her, paused to reach into one shirt pocket and removed something there. He next slid his fighting knife from his belt and cut something off whatever he now held in his hand. He popped the sliver into his mouth and started to chew before returning the knife to his belt and the object to his pocket. The girl seeing this… ceased her arm waving and planted both small fists on her hips and gave him a silent look of grim disproval.

Which Korr also ignored and began walking again. Haze supposed the man had a Yunovee habit; many soldiers smoked or chewed the planet's leaves and it could have been a pug of the dried foliage that the scout had in his pocket. The corporal concluded the server found the habit distasteful and she was letting her ire be known. Haze had spoken to the girl only on a few occasions, and while a homeless refugee, she seemed to come from a higher-class background than he was use to. He could well imagine that someone of her breeding would find a vice, such as smoking or chewing, very repugnant.

She had always been nice the few times they talked, but he knew his social standing must be far below what she would have considered equal, and it always made him nervous. That and she was so beautiful, even when she was dusty and sweaty from labor, that Haze found his tongue suddenly tied and about as articulate as a dead log. So he always found an excuse to keep their interaction at a minimum… least she discover that his social skills were as lacking as his social status also.

He was brave under enemy fire, but he wasn't sure if he could suffer the embarrassment of having her find out he was only a lowly farm boy who had only enlisted in the military as his only chance to make a better life and future for himself.

The girl had immediately followed the mercenary again, this time attempting to place herself directly into his path, and shaking an extended forefinger at him in a scolding manner. Despite her best effort, she was unable to place herself directly in front of the man due to his longer stride, though it still did not stop her from trying.

"I wonder what they are fighting about?" said Satuur idly from across the fire.

Haze glanced over and saw that the Private had picked up on his interest and was watching the scout and the serving girl as well.

"I wouldn't know," was all he would permit the man in answer. He was reluctant to give Satuur any excuse to engage him in conversation if he could avoid it.

At the sound of the exchange between the others, AcRooks looked up from his task, and then in the direction they both were looking. As soon as he realized who they were talking about, he turned and gave Haze a look that said, 'oh, not again', and then returned back to using the stone to scrap the last of his beard stubble away. Haze in turn shot him a sour look, as it was his fault that Haze had contracted his former obsession with Korr.

AcRooks remained oblivious to the reversal in their prior roles.

"She seems very angry with the mercenary," Satuur continued.

"That she does," allowed Haze.

"She's very pretty," the Private said next.

AcRooks barked a short laugh as he put his shaving kit away. "That's the first smart observation I've heard you make, Tuuri," he said lightly.

Satuur frowned in thought. "I don't trust him. You can never trust a merc. What do either of you know about him?"

AcRooks shrugged. "No much myself," he said, "I was curious about him a few weeken ago. But then it got old and boring. So I let it drop…unlike some grunts I know," he added with a side look at Haze.

The other Corporal tightened his arms across his chest slightly. Taking the tease from his friend in serious thought.

"Aye, after you started, I couldn't help but to pay more attention to him. I just think he's strange is all after watching him closer," he reaffirmed. "Not only the way he can appear and disappear without a trace in the bush. It's everything about him. He has that girl, Jaleecee, following around after him like a Jiphound pup… practically living in his bivouac… and he claims he hasn't touched her, let alone made any advances."

"I know… I believe half the camp saw the incident with her brother," added AcRooks. "Poor lad."

Haze grimaced and shook his head slightly.

"That's just not natural either," he went on, "If I had a beautiful girl like that fawning on me. I'd have counted my blessings and proposed a Unity Commitment long ago."

AcRooks raised an eyebrow at the comment.

"Oh ho! I think the young soldier has something special going for the serving maiden," he ragged in a dramatic voice. "If the scout isn't going to step up to the young lady, why don't you throw your helmet into the ring for her hand instead?"

Haze rewarded his partner with a twisted look.

"No really, you can't be more than four cycles older than her. That's an appropriate age spread… unlike my advanced age and experience, which is huge abyss of about six cycles or so older. Otherwise I might have also decided to pursue her myself."

"You're not amusing," Haze told him, to which AcRooks put upon a mock wounded look… and then grinned.

Haze turned back just in time to see the scout and half-Nebari girl disappear into the mess tent.

"I'm only a corporal anyway," he muttered. "A pretty girl like her, even being just a camp server right now, will probably sooner or later catch the eye of a commissioned Officer, and then commit to him. I could never afford to give her the kind of life she deserves on my pay."

"Then why does she go after a mercenary?" Satuur asked.

Neither Haze nor AcRooks glanced at each other as neither had thought of that before the Private had mentioned it. Neither man seemed to have an immediate answer for him.

"And speaking of un-natural… there's the way he went through the punishment for the beating he gave those gunners," the Private went on.

"Satuur…" Haze warned. "He paid his debt in full to the unit. Its against tradition to ever speak of it again." The other man only spat into the fire with obvious disdain.

"Bah! A tradition only deserving of full service men, not frelling mercs! And did you see him? Scars from the neck down! He's trouble that one. No honest man gets that banged up without a reason… and not unless he did something to deserved it."

"Perhaps he just liked to brawl?" put in AcRooks. "Wouldn't be the first time a nurfer became a merc just because they like to fight. And maybe all that scar tissue is the reason he stood so well at the whipping. Perhaps he has nerve damage and simply just couldn't feel it like you or I would? I've also heard rumors of surgery procedures you might be able to get that leave you with the ability to turn off pain at will."

"Whatever the reason, we are not going to sit here and discuss the scout's punishment like three old women," Haze added with slight irritation. "That is over and done with."

"I'm telling you, that Korr cannot be trusted. He's just too lucky on patrols too… and nobody can be that good. I've never heard of anyone who has gone where he has supposed to have gone, and almost never get a scratch. If you ask me, I think some of the stories I've heard are really just tricks. Nobody can just slip unseen into a heavily fortified enemy outpost and take out five sentinels without causing an alarm; they're all set-ups I tell you. Faked to make that scout look good. I believe he's an enemy spy and at some point when the time is right, he's going to lead this entire unit into a ambush to be wiped out."

"Now Haze, I believe, will probably agree with that theory," AcRooks tossed in offhandedly.

The younger Corporal held a hand up as if Satuur's thought interested him.

"You believe that," he asked, "You really believe that?

Satuur took his time slipping at his own metal mug of klunchu, obviously enjoying being the center of attention for the moment, and then finally nodded his head sagely.

"And I'm not the only one. Others have noticed odd things about that scout and are reaching the very same conclusion. I've already spoken with a few, and we have a agreement of sorts to watch Tessen Korr very carefully… and if we see anything suspicious, one of us will put a pulse bolt in his head. Or take care of it some other way."

"You think that would be necessary?" asked AcRooks.

Satuur finished the rest of his mug before replying.

"Let me put it this way. Don't be surprised if that scout doesn't come back from patrol one day and they never find a body. Or if he has an unfortunate 'accident'. You both would do just as well to watch out for yourselves, and don't hesitate to kill the bastard on your own if you even think he's up to something. A number of us are advising others to be on the watch also, and to do the very same thing if they notice anything suspicious with the scout. A grunt's survival and the security of the unit is the priority out in the bush or the battlefield. No one at Command is going to ask too many questions over a missing or dead merc… and you just might save the unit and your own eema if you act in time."

Haze looked at Satuur and his estimate for the man raised some – not much, but some. If the Private and some others had an uneasy feeling about the scout too, then Haze considered he himself was on to something.

While only a Private, Satuur was several cycles older than even AcRooks and had supposedly been a soldier all his adult life – so that had to count for something when it came to reading other men on the battlefield.

"So you think it will come to that?" Haze found himself asking. "Korr will at some point betray us, and one of us will have to kill him?"

Satuur surprised him by breaking into a knowing smile.

"I've been a soldier long enough, Corporal… to say I'm sure of it."

Abruptly with that smile, Haze had that old feeling that there was something about this man that shouldn't be trusted either.

But he couldn't find much in fault with Satuur's assessment about the scout at the moment… especially when Haze himself had been harboring his own concerns about the mercenary for so long.

It still sat ill with Haze though the way Satuur settle back with a hint of smugness on his face, as if he'd accomplished something far more than just getting them to consider his viewpoints.

D'argo paced the length of the rogue Shrikes' common room with his long strides. His chest wound still ached but he ignored the twinges in his ever-growing impatience. He was alone, the youngest of the ex-Enforcers living in the underground bunker having departed half-an-arn ago on some covert errand, after informing him that Istrish was on her way there with news of his friends' possible whereabouts.

Something had the Shrikes stirred up, as they had never been out all at the same time during his stay with them. The youthful member had known nothing more of his leader's news, and refused to tell him what the other ex-assassins were up to despite his half-hearted threats.

The big Luxan issued a growl from deep in his lungs that caused his injury to respond with more sharp pain. It only served to make him angrier.

He was contemplating smashing the makeshift table in the center of the room to pieces, when a curtain stirred and Istrish finally appeared.

"What have you learned?" he demanded sharply in way of greeting for the Sykaran woman.

"And a good day to you too, Ka' Dargo," she said in laconic response. The woman looked tired, and it was obvious that she had been up a good part of the night before. The warrior found that at the moment, he couldn't care much about her exhaustion. Only word about his friends mattered to him after waiting so long.

"Tell me what you know," he said in a low growl.

Istrish sighed and removed her long coat. She had grown use to the Luxan's gruff ways and knew he wouldn't settle down until he got what he wanted. It was one of the qualities she had also grown to like about him over time.

"Sit down and I will tell you. It's been a long night and I don't need you prowling about the room like a Zant-tiger on the hunt."

D'argo surprised her and only grunted once before settling his large frame into a seat opposite her, and then said more civilly, "Apologizes, the wait is agonizing. Please tell what you have learned."

"Its not all good, the news is presently vague and we are still gathering information," she began. "We have learned that the Leviathan carrying your friends has been sequestered in Hynerian space. That is why we could not find her for so long. The empire is in a state of flux from a continuing upheaval of its power structure."

"Rygel is retaking his throne," D'argo supplied, and then cursed to himself. "Why the hezmana didn't I think of that? He was planning to return before the war started. I didn't think he'd be able to accomplish it so soon, but I should have known the slug better to think he'd wait long."

"The Hynerian boarders are closed for the most part, so news of the changing climate has been hard to filter through to the rest of the Territories," the female Shrike added.

"So they're there on Hynerian," D'argo concluded. "All we have to do is go there then?"

Istrish shook her head. "That is the not so good news I spoke of. Our sources have indicated that your friends and the Leviathan have left Hynerian controlled space and have reentered the Territories over a weeken ago."

"Let me guess, and you don't know where they are now."

"No. Not at the moment," she told him with a small shake of her head. A hint in her tone also told him there was something more.

D'argo frowned deeply.

"Now you're going to tell me the really bad news, aren't you?" he continued.

She nodded. "We know this next part only because we still have a few sources inside a couple of the minor Syndicate Houses. Some of them have initiated plans to capture your friend, John Crichton… believing that he has plans for a massive wormhole weapon in his possession. The Syndicate wants the weapon for its own use. They are now aware that he is traveling outside Hynerian space and are putting their plan for his apprehension into action."

"Frell!" D'argo hissed. "We have to find them before the Syndicate does." He thought a few microts and then said; "I had thought you said that common knowledge was that John no longer had the wormhole secrets in his head. That the Ancient's removed it after he demonstrated the potential destructiveness of the technology to both sides."

"So is the official story from the Imperium and Peacekeeper Command, yes… but the Black Syndicate doesn't believe it. They think he still has the secrets… or that it can still be extracted from his brain whether he remembers it or not," Istrish replied. "Even if he doesn't still have the knowledge, once he's in Syndicate possession they can claim they did recover it, and hold the rest of the Territories for ransom. No one would take a chance to defy them. Everyone would be at their mercy and there would be no stopping the Syndicate after that."

"Damn! Frelled if he does still have it and still frelled if he doesn't," the Luxan spat.

"That's about the size of it," Istrish agreed. "We cannot let them find this Crichton."

"I agree," rumbled the warrior. "We must leave immediately… as soon as we have even the slightest idea where Moya is heading."

The ex-assassin nodded. "The others are out now preparing for our departure and we are gathering the other cells. We have several people waiting to hear from our agents inside the Syndicate for word that they have found your friend. Others are waiting at our shuttle to leave the planet at a moment's notice. Our only hope is to beat the Syndicate forces to where Crichton is at, once we have a location."

Dargo grunted in thought.

"We'll need something faster and better armed than a shuttle. We'll need a warship to go up against those bastards."

"A shuttle is all we have," Istrish protested. "And we are lucky to have that."

"Can you get me to a broad band space transceiver?" the warrior asked next.

The female Shrike blinked in confusion.

"There is one at the commerce port, but to use it would reveal our presence here to the Syndicate," she explained to him. "You can be sure they will have people monitoring all communication networks, not only for a hint of where the rogue Shrike forces are located, but also for any useful information carelessly broadcast over open channels."

"Then you'll have to abandon your hideout here," D'argo said. "That wouldn't matter anyway, we'll be long gone before the Syndicate can find this place. And I know just were to get us a warship. Assemble all of your people that you can."

"Where will you get this ship?" Istrish asked with growing amazement at the big Luxan.

"My son, Jothee, has one that will do just fine," he replied with a growing grin.

Chiana knocked back the last in a long line of Raslek drinks and slammed the empty glass down on the table to join a horde of like-wise empty glassware. She stifled a belch and signaled the waitress for another round.

"Girl, you better slow down," warned Raydoon from the opposite side of the round table.

Chiana dismissed the counsel with one casual wave. A server placed another drink in front of her and she tossed a credit chip onto her tray.

"Frell it and blotch it!" she quipped as she saluted with the new glass. "I feel like relaxing a little tonight."

The humanoid man frowned gravely.

"Considering your current employer, there's such a thing as relaxing too much."

The Nebari shot him a mischievous look. "Worried that I'm gonna frell it up?" she asked.

"Considering that I vouched for you to Saifree Madden… yes. My eema is on the line too," Raydoon replied seriously.

"Worry not, Raymie," Chiana said with one up-raised finger. "I do my best planning when I'm drinking. And right now… I really need time to plan… and drink."

Raydoon reached across the table, his hand weaving a way through the glass obstacle course Chiana had amassed before her, to take her hand in his.

"I'm also worried about you, Chiana," he said lowly. "I just don't want you getting into trouble taking on more than you can handle."

"Aw… that's sweet, Raymie," the gray girl started out. She even padded his hand for a few microts, before firmly removing it from atop her own hand. "But I'm a big girl and can take care of myself," she continued, her eyes unexpectedly clearing and not so intoxicated anymore, turning hard just a microt later. "I don't need another big brother watching over me." This last was delivered in such a dead, emotionless tone that Raydoon found himself involuntarily withdrawing his hand away from the girl's with a slight shiver.

Before the man could think of something else more convincing to add to his discussion with the Nebari, a large shadow darkened their table. He looked up, but the figure was backlit by the lighting in the refreshment house and he couldn't discern the person's features for the moment.

Chiana on the other hand had no problem realizing whom the shadow belonged to.

"Well, if it isn't my old dancing partner… Stolie," she said without looking up. "Did your master let you off the leash to go play with the other drones tonight?"

Raydoon swallowed hard as he realized that it indeed was Madden's strong man. The cold evil grin that broke out on Chiana's lips at the huge man's presence made Raydoon even more apprehensive.

"Tralk," Stolie growled lowly. "Mr. Madden would have a report from you about your progress."

Chiana leaned back in her seat and spread her arms out wide along the backrest, obviously enjoying the confrontation, much to Raydoon's growing dread.

"Then old Saifree can come ask me his self," she told the big thug. "I told him I would contact him when I was ready. I'm not ready… and I don't report to the hired help."

"Don't frell with me, bitch. You'll do what I say, when I say. There's a certain order in things when you work for Saifree Madden… and you're nowhere near the top in that sequence," Stolie spat, and placing both huge meaty hands on the table leaned down closer to her. "And I haven't forgotten what you did to me."

The Nebari girl just smiled wickedly at the reminder.

"Stolie… Molie… Bolie," she said in a mocking singsong. "Are you still grised about your mivonks? Or still just amazed… that I managed to hit something so very small?"

Seeing the strong-arm man's face flare bright red in outrage at the gray girl's insult, Raydoon tried to head off what he knew was coming.

"Perhaps we should…" was all he managed to get out.

Stolie nearly roar in fury and reached forward with one brawny hand to snare the girl around the throat.

She may not have looked it, but Chiana was ready. And instead of attempting to move out of reach, she surprised the thug by remaining seated. In response she simply batted the reaching limb aside, sending the man slightly off balance.

Reaching up with her other hand she seized Stolie by the hair at the back of his head in a tight grip. The blocking hand came back in and she did something with her wrist, and immediately there was a long blade in that hand, it's point just a few hair breaths away from Stolie's left eye.

The big man froze as he literally saw his predicament.

Chiana gave him a moment to reflect on the situation, and then smiled sickly at him.

"Now Stolie, my dear," she said sweetly, " I know Madden didn't send you here tonight. You just here to flex your muscle… but you should know, I'm the type of girl that will snap it off," She slowly moved the knifepoint from the area of his eyes until it rested on the cheek below it. Stolie shivered as he felt the ceramic blade point prick his skin, and the thief tightened her hold on his hair. "Or maybe it's that you just can't stay away from me, I get that from males a lot… but you really shouldn't frell with a girl when she has more important work to do."

Stolie made as if to say something, but Chiana only pushed the tip of the knife further into his cheek, giving it a little twist until a rivulet of blood started to flow down to the corner of his mouth. "Ah, ah, ah! I wasn't giving you permission to talk," she instructed.

The thug got the message and didn't attempt to speak further.

"Smart boy," Chiana purred. "Wouldn't want to mess up those good… well, looks that only your mother could love now, would we?"

Stolie only glared at her in answer.

"Good. See? You can learn," she said. "Now, Raymie… be so kind as to reach over and get his gun for me. Wouldn't want to have anymore misunderstandings tonight."

"Uh… maybe… we should…" Raydoon stammered.

"Get his gun!" Chiana insisted more strongly. Knowing there was no sense in arguing with the gray girl. Raydoon reach across with an apologetic look and took possession of Stolie's pistol.

"There, now we're all friendly-like," said Chiana, once the weapon was safely removed.

"Maybe we should just let this go before it goes too far?" Raydoon suggested hopelessly.

Chiana turned slightly to look at him. "Oh no… my love, Stolie, and I still have to have a discussion about his earlier behavior. Yes, we do. We can't let him wander about with no sense of manners now, can we?"

She emphasized her words with sharp tugs on the man's hair, which brought single tears to the corners of his eyes.

"Now, what was it you called me before? Oh yes, it was tralk, wasn't it?"

Raydoon shook his head and covered his eyes, afraid to find out actually what the gray woman was going to do to the thug.

"What did I say my name was?" she asked. When Stolie refused to answer the first time, she twisted the knife once more, making the man wince. "I'm waiting," she continued, followed by another twist of the blade. "Come on, surely a smart trained Kigzit Rat like you can remember my name?" This time Stolie grunted in pain.

"Pixie! You said to call you, Pixie!" he forced out.

"There… was that so hard to remember, lover?" she asked with an unhinged smile.

Keeping her knife in place and the hold on his hair, she forced him a little closer. Then she slowly licked the right side of his face from chin to forehead. It might have almost been seductive, if not for the cold unfeeling glint in her dark eyes. Raydoon suddenly had the image of a predator tasting its prey, as he sat helplessly by.

"Now run along before I really have to punish you," she said, the mock playfulness now absent from her tone. To Raydoon it sounded like her voice was coming from a grave, it also held the hint of barely concealed violence under it. The cold look in Chiana's dark eyes gave the male thief the impression that the Nebari would enjoy killing the big thug if given the chance or motive.

She released her hold on Stolie's hair, while somehow her booted foot had gotten between them and she used it to thrust the big man away from her.

Stolie staggered backwards a few steps before managing to catch himself, one hand automatically wiping Chiana's spittle from the side of his face, before switching over to the other side to wipe away the blood running down his cheek from the knife prick. For a moment he looked like he was deciding on if he should attack her again.

But Chiana's cold feral smirk made it look as if she were daring him to do just that.

He wisely chose not to follow his desire for vengeance, as she still casually held the strange big knife in one hand.

"You're frelling insane," was all he managed to come out with as he backed away.

The girl tilted her head and her mirthless grin widened for him.

"You have no frelling idea, bucko," she countered, slipping in one of Crichton's famous nicknames.

Stolie looked puzzled by the strange nickname for a few microts, as if not sure if it were meant as an insult or not, but then turned and stormed away.

Chiana and Raydoon watched as the strong-arm man found the exit and left the refreshment house. Raydoon turned to regard his companion as she did something with her hand again and the big knife folded up somehow and disappeared up her shirtsleeve in an eye-blink.

Raydoon had been hoping to talk the attractive thief into spending the night with him, but now he was having serious second thoughts. He was beginning to realize there was something dark and possibly twisted beneath her beautiful exterior, something very far beyond the usual insensitivity and narcissism of the ordinary criminals and thieves that inhabited his everyday world. The girl was turning out to be much too unpredictable for his comfort range… and unpredictable was the same as very dangerous.

Chiana turned and caught him looking at her in deep thought. She lifted an single eyebrow as if to ask "what?" The male thief had the idea that the Nebari knew what he had been thinking as one corner of her black satin lips jerked upward in an amused tick. The amusement didn't travel to her eyes however; they remained nearly dead dark pools where not even light seemed to escape.

He had originally helped the girl with her contacts, in the hope that it might lead to something of the romantic nature between them in the near future. Those hopes were wisely fleeting from his thoughts the more time he spent in the gray-skinned female's company. Somehow he found himself beginning to categorize the woman as 'damage-goods' the longer he observed her. And he meant damaged-goods, as like a pulse pistol with a cracked Chakan magazine in the well, both the gun and this girl were equally deadly to anyone near them.

Raydoon unconsciously settled back further in his chair, as if to put more room between them.

"He's right," he found himself saying. "You are crazy."

Chiana bit her lip for a moment as if thinking the comment over.

Finally she simply said, "Shut up and drink."

She lifted her own glass and found it had become empty again, though she couldn't recall having finished it. So she signaled another waitress for a refill. One finally headed over to their table, having obviously been ignoring the drama being played out there just a few microts ago like the rest of the patrons in the tavern. She ordered and sat back to wait, turning over Raydoon's last comment in her mind.

She was slipping, becoming more reckless and uncaring, she knew. Almost as if she had caught whatever madness had affected Berret and took his mind. The Shrike was at least at rest now, she thought. Death had a way of relieving all of one's cares. She was the unlucky one; she still lived with the pain, everyday, with no ending of it in sight.

Her thoughts ran through and reminded her of all she'd lost, all she'd never really had, just like a never-ending data loop. Not even the seemly endless flow of drink stopped the unbidden images now.

No family, no one like Nerri to watch over her, or John to care for her like he had always done for Aeryn – no one to make the grand selfless sacrifices the human made for everyone he cared for. No guide, no source of inner strength and enlightenment – Zhaan gone for so long now, no longer any shelter in her care when things became confusing. No love, not one to hold her – Dargo, dead on some Scarran-held planet. Buying their freedom with his last few moments of life. It would have been better if he had let her stay to die right there with him.

No one left to see what she was inside, the true person in her soul. To be loved for her inner light and not her body alone – Berret so strangely innocent in the beginning, and then cruelly returned to her broken. Part of her shameful and guilty when she considers he might truly be better off dead now… and at the same time cursing him, cursing them all really, because she was left to bear it all and carry on alone.

She was tired, always so tired. How much could one person be meant too lose before her mind also left her… running from the constant pain life had become.

She found she didn't care anymore, just couldn't find a way for herself to care anymore. She was well aware that she in fact, welcomed the madness with open arms.

Maybe it would set her free.


	7. Chapter 6

John watched the Hynerian warship veer off toward open space, flash its running lights in farewell, then seem to stretch in length for a split-microt before disappearing into warped space back toward home and the trouble brewing there.

Before departing the Light Cruiser had transferred over a detachment of Empire Troopers and several attack ships that were now sitting in Moya's massive hanger bay, along with crates of supplies and armament, while the soldiers took up the empty quarters on tier seven. The human was surprised to discover that a combination of bipedal races actually made up detachment, with Hynerians really numbering only a handful. It had to figure when the astronaut really considered it, seeing mostly subjugated races made up a vast percentage of the Hynerian Empire.

Crichton allowed himself a warm smile as he recalled Rygel's unrelenting insistence that they allow the big warship to escort them to their destination, and then leave them with a tier full of Hyneria's best soldiers for their protection on the journey to look Chiana up. Because of the unsettled conditions still on Hyneria, the cruiser had to return home as soon as they arrived, but the trooper detachment would stay… "To protect my godson," Rygel had told them.

John grinned broadly at the memory. Making Rygel little D'argo's godfather had been John's idea, as it was a human custom. Though the others didn't get the joke whenever John did his Marlin Brando imitation while repeating anything Rygel had just said. They merely looked at him as if he had gone crazy and shook their heads. You'd think they be use to that by now?

Still, John thought it was seriously funny, even if the others didn't get it.

Rygel on the other hand, was ecstatic to have been asked to be the baby's godfather and took the role very sincerely. And Aeryn agreed it was the least they could do for all that the Hynerian went through during the baby's untypical birth.

"Well, the chaperone is heading home," Crichton drawled as he turned his attention to the command pedestal and checked a few readouts. Across the room, Aeryn looked up from whatever had her attention on a different control panel for the moment, and smiled brightly at him.

God, how he loved that stubborn woman, he found himself thinking.

"We have more than enough company left below decks," she replied.

John's boyish grinned returned. It hadn't escaped him that his wife seemed to be more at home and relaxed with a shipload of soldiers aboard. It probably reminded her of home.

"Looks like we'll be busy entertaining guests on this trip. Hope we have enough cheese and crackers in stores to last the trip," he said off-handedly, "The holidays can be so stressful… the in-laws over, annoying aunt Gertrude, cousin Morty who sits around in his underwear all day…"

Aeryn give her husband a chuckle. Sometimes she didn't have a clue as to what John was going on about, but after spending some time on Earth, she now had a better insight as to what made him tick… or not tick correctly in the Peacekeeper sense.

"I think I will leave you to handle cousin Morty," she shot back, "Meanwhile, Pilot says we will be arriving in a little over an arn. As D'argo is with Helga, I think I will stop by the hanger bay to inspect some of the new model attack ships the Troopers brought aboard. Care to join me?"

Ah… good ole' Nanny Helga," Crichton said, reminded of the further addition to Moya's crew roster that Rygel had insisted upon. "Every parent in the Territories should have one."

The being John had dubbed Helga, mostly because he couldn't pronounce her real name for the life of him, was close to seven feet tall by human standards and built like a Tank. She had skin that was as black as a Nebari's was white, and hands that were so large that John was positive she could crush his skull with them if she ever had the notion.

Rygel had chosen her from among his palace staff and sent her along… and she was absolutely devoted to the baby beyond all else.

The Hynerian ruler never would say for sure of what race she was from, not even Aeryn as a Peacekeeper had the slightest clue. But the alien's sheer size and muscular build led John to believe she might have been some sort of bodyguard, or soldier at some point… which may or may not have some reason to do with why Rygel was even more insistent that they take Helga along with them than he was with getting his way with the war cruiser escort.

"Might as well, there's nothing else to do up here," Crichton told her. "Besides I knew there wasn't much hope of keeping you from snooping around the hanger bay with those new hotrods aboard."

His wife shot him a quick grin, and then covered it with a stern serious look.

"Snooping is for spies, Crichton," she corrected mockingly. "Inspecting is what commanding officers do. And to refer to those finely machined, highly tuned, military craft as 'hotrods' is a grave injustice."

"I stand corrected," John replied with a deep bow. "Lead on, Captain Sun, and let us 'inspect' your finely tuned ships."

Aeryn suppressed a big grin and moved pass him to lead the way. Abruptly she paused just at the Command Tiers access doorway. "Oh, and Crichton… you did remember to hide that rickety Module ship of yours away in one of the storage bays, didn't you? I wouldn't want it sitting around the hanger bay and embarrassing us in front of the other pilots."

John's eyes narrowed at the jab, and then he shook his fist in pseudo anger at his mate.

"Watch it, woman," he warned. "You don't go ripping on a man's ride."

Aeryn let out a laugh she wasn't able to hold in anymore as she turned to go.

Little more than an arn later, Moya eased her way in to an assignment parking orbit around the commerce planet that she had dropped Chiana off only about a fourth of a cycle ago. Pilot contacted the planet's space command, but was superceded by the commanding officer of the Empire troops aboard. The helmsman was a mite irritated by the soldier's brass interruption during the initial permission contact, but had to admit the officer got faster results and a much better orbital position than he would have on his own.

Perhaps there were benefits to having a company of Empire troopers aboard to throw their weight around with port authority bureaucrats, he and Moya both agreed.

John and Aeryn climbed aboard a Transport Pod and scooted from Moya's landing bay, closely followed by a Hynerian Fire-Cudda – a transport gunship about the size of a Peacekeeper Marauder, used to move a squad of soldiers from place to place on missions, and armed to the teeth with gun ports. And two single-seat fighter escorts.

Aeryn piloted the Pod, while stealing envious glances out the windscreen at the sleek fighters that flew a defense pattern around the small convoy of ships. John wiped a sudden knowing smile from his face, knowing his wife would rather be in the cockpit of one of the fighters, than at the controls of a mere Transport Pod.

Space control cleared them to land immediately, but the ex-Peacekeeper bristled slightly at the insistence from the Hynerian flight leader that the Fire-Cudda be allowed to land first and deploy its troop element before the Pod set down.

"Its just the price of Sparky's love, honey," Crichton told her from the co-pilot position. "No sense getting all worked up about it. Let the fellows do their job."

"I hate being treated like a incapable feeble!" Aeryn barked. "I could fight circles around the best of them."

"Yes, I know," John replied. "You don't have to tell me. Lets just enjoy the trip planet-side and see if we can dig Pip up."

His wife grunted, still not appeased, but willing to bare the burden of being guarded like some toothless old rich fenik.

"Have you given any thought as to how we're going to locate Chiana?" she asked next.

"Of course I have," John said, producing an old comm badge with some obvious jury-rigged alterations and add-ons. "I rigged this old badge to track a second badge that I slipped into her travel bag."

Aeryn eyed the cobbled together device with some skepticism, and then pulled out a military grade tracker from a duffle bag at her feet.

"I probably had the idea first… and mine's better," she announced. I injected an isotope tracer into the handles of her baggage as well."

"Well, great minds do think alike," John responded with his usual boyish grin. He wasn't about to rise to being baited by his wife.

She pointedly looked again at her husband's homemade tracking device.

"Mine is still better… and will probably actually work," she finally added.

The agent nervously looked around the vehicle depot, and saw no one, not even the perimeter guards, nearby. He hunkered down behind a mobile frag-cannon's huge transport tracks and assembled his communication device swiftly, his nimble finger working confidently in the near pitch darkness thanks to long arns of practice.

"Yes, Lord?" he asked respectfully. He wasn't going to make the same near deadly mistake twice.

"We have word that our quarry has left Hynerian space, and is in fact in route to a planet in your sector," the Scarran crime lord said without preamble.

"Then I am to leave my operation here?" the agent asked. A new trill rose within him at his luck.

"Not yet," his master told him. "There has been a… complication."

"Of what sort, my Lord?"

"Our sources tell us that, this Crichton creature has left Hyneria for the purpose of reuniting with their Nebari compatriot."

"Nebari?" the agent said. "The same tralk that aided in the rogue's escape from House Arckatius?"

"Precisely, slave," the crime lord replied. "And in there lies a new foreseeable quandary. Our analysts see two distinct possibilities for this. The first is Crichton wants the Nebari girl to help him enlist the rogue assistance for whatever he has planned. We believe the prior Hynerian Dominar may have sent him to secure the rogue's services in re-securing his throne. The second possible complication we see is that the rogue will learn of Crichton's search for the girl, and he will leave your current location to join them. His past behavior concerning this female is unpredictable. And given what that rogue Shrike has done to High House Arckatius, and the fact that they cannot seem to eradicate him, his possible involvement with our quarry is not acceptable for any reason."

"And your orders, Lord?" the Syndicate man asked. He could feel his excitement building.

"You are to eradicate the rogue as swiftly as, and by any means, possible," the Scarran leader directed.

"That will be easy, my Lord. I have already been setting the groundwork for his removable among the troops here. None will question his sudden death and the operation here can be safely resumed anytime after we capture this Crichton if you wish."

He could almost hear the Scarran give a toothy pleased smile over the link.

"Excellent planning, slave," the Overlord praised. "You have done well… see that you keep doing so and you may yet go far in my House. The information on your prey has been encoded and relayed to your ship. As soon as you are finished with the rogue, depart the planet and head for Crichton's location. Other agents will join you there. Another House Shrike will be dispatched to take over your operation there so you need not concern yourself with it further."

"Yes, my Lord."

"Do not fail me, or my House," the Scarran said, and then ended the comm link from his end.

The agent disassembled his comm unit, all the while not believing his luck. He was going to kill the only Enforcer ever to escape House Arckatius and remain free… then capture and return to his House the man who held a secret that would enable them to rule the Territories, perhaps even the entire universe!

He saw great things in store for his immediate future.

"D'argo! D'argo!" Istrish shouted excitedly as she entered the common room of their hideout.

The big Luxan parted the curtains to his room and stepped out.

"Here! What is it?" he asked, with some growing concern.

The female Shrike ran up to him and threw her arms around the warrior. At first the Luxan was a little embarrassed, as the rooms had filled up with other ex-Enforcers as the word had gone out for them to assemble, and it had become more than clear that Istrish had more than just a passing interest in him.

Her next words put all that aside.

"We have found them! We know where the Leviathan is!" she said.

"Moya! They found Moya!" D'argo exclaimed, as he picked the woman up and spun her around joyfully. He set her down and grabbed her by the arms as he asked, "And what about John and the others, are they on board?"

"We don't know about that for sure," Istrish replied. "Only that they left Hynerian space escorted by a large warship and headed to a planet three sectors from here. We have agents observing the Leviathan and ready to follow them at a moment's notice should they leave. We'll be able to catch up with them no matter where they go now."

"That is the best damn news I've had in almost a third of a cycle," D'argo said. "I can't wait to be back with Chiana again!"

As soon as he said it, he saw the smile die on Istrish's pretty face. The warrior instantly felt bad, though he had been totally honest with the woman about his desire to be reunited with Chiana right from the beginning. Despite that, the woman never stopped hoping that the Luxan would change his mind.

He lowered his voice and attempted to maneuver the female Shrike into a more private area of the common room, which was difficult considering all the personal currently present. Still, most of the other ex-assassins did their best to appear to be not paying them any attention.

"Ah… listen, Istrish… I didn't mean… what I'm trying to say…" he started and stopped several times in his awkwardness.

"Its alright, D'argo," the Sykaran said. "You've told me right from the start where your heart lies."

The warrior sighed. "I know… it's just that I'm grateful to you, all of you. And I do like you and I have enjoyed out time together. We do have much in common, and if Chiana wasn't there, I'd be more than interested…"

She placed a finger on his lips to quiet him.

"I know," she told him. "I admit that I had held on to a small bit of hope, but you never led me on. You are the most honorable man I have ever met Ka'D'argo. I will still be proud to call you friend."

D'argo smiled.

"And I you, Istrish. I have learned over the last several cycles that you cannot have too many people that you can truly call friend."

She grasped both his hands in hers. "Then shall we go about finding the rest of yours?" she asked with a smile.

"Yes, it's been much too long," he confirmed. "Do you still have the trace on my son's ship?" Istrish gave him a nod in response. "Then it's time we let him know I'm still alive and arrange for him to pick us up. Tell your people to be ready to abandon this place within the arn."

Kenrikk looked up and stole a glance at his sister as he stacked the last of the recently cleaned trays away. Neither sibling had spoken during the rush to serve the last meal… and they hadn't been on generally good speaking terms lately anyway. Still, he was the eldest and it was his duty to look out for her – even if she detested it.

"I still don't like this," he said, and braced himself for another argument.

Jaleecee paused for a microt in her work as he spoke, but didn't turn around to face him.

"We are not going to talk about his again, 'Rikk," she said. "I am of age and it is my choice. Besides… we need the extra credits the work brings."

He leaned against a sink for a few microts and then turned fully toward her.

"We can make up the extra money elsewhere, 'LeeCee. There are other jobs here beside working for 'him'."

"I make an agreement," she countered. "Father would be disappointed if I broke my word."

"Father wouldn't want this!" he broke in.

She finally turned herself to look at him.

"Father saw nothing wrong with honest work," she said.

"Jaleecee," he began, "There is talk in the camp…"

The half-Nebari girl threw her washrag down in disgust.

"If those worthless benni-bags have nothing better to do than gossip, then let them," she exclaimed irately. "I have told you repeatedly – nothing is going on! Not that it is any of your, or anyone else's, business if there was!"

Kenrikk shook his head to keep her from ranting on. "That's not what I was talking about," he told her.

"Then what?" she asked, throwing her arms up slightly to indicate she was at a lost as to what he was referring too.

"There's talk about him, about the scout," he went on. "I don't think its safe for you to be around him."

"What have you heard?" she asked suspiciously.

Her brother drew a heavy sigh, and then indicated that the girl should take a seat at an empty table. Reluctantly, his sister sat down and he took a seat across from her so that they could put their heads closer together for a more private conversation.

"Go on," Jaleecee urged.

"They're saying… they're saying that he might be a spy," he finally came out and said.

The girl twisted her lips in a disbelieving frown.

"Who says this?" she demanded to know.

"Its not just any one person," he continued, "The rumor is going through the whole camp. I've heard the soldiers talking… and many of them are becoming nervous where the scout is concerned. They say he's a little too successful… and nobody actually sees him do any of the things that he's suppose to have done. They only see the bodies. Many say it's a trick and he's really working for the other side."

"That's Mualza dren!" the girl exclaimed. Kenrikk blinked in surprise, as his sister rarely if ever swore. "Korr is not a traitor!"

"He's a mercenary," he reminded her. "He fights for whoever pays him the most."

The thought seemed to strike something in the serving girl for a brief moment, but then she shook it off.

"No. No," she said firmly, "Not him. He's a good honorable man. I know him, "Rikk. He wouldn't do anything like that."

Kenrikk did his best to appear reasonable. His sister was much like their mother had been, stubborn and unshakeable when she believed in something… or someone.

"Think this through, Jaleecee. You've barely known him for a twelfth of a cycle," he said. "How much can you really learn about him in that short a time?"

She shook her head. "I know," she said, proving her stubborn streak. "I just know."

Kenrikk had the look of a man who was tired of beating his head against the wall. He reached over and took his sibling by her thin shoulders.

"Listen to me," he went on firmly. "You're my sister and I love you… and it's my job to protect you when I can. You may believe in this Tessen Korr, but too many others believe something else. I just want you safe, and not caught in the middle of something tragic."

The girl's bright eyes widened in sudden realization.

"What else have you heard?" she asked tightly.

"Nothing that could be proved…" he started.

"Stop it! Stop it right now!" Jaleecee cried. "You tell me now… what have you heard!"

Her brother sighed again and pursed his lips together for a moment.

"Some are saying that there are measures going to be taken to ensure there can be no betrayal on the scout's part," he finally told her.

"What does all that mean?" she asked.

"Jaleecee, these are soldiers we are talking about," he said, "You know the things they would do in cases like this. I just don't want you hurt when it happens."

His sister sat for a moment speechless, terror and fear mixing in her eyes.

A mortar explosion rocked the ground; shaking the ruined wall he was using for cover and sending a cloud of dust into the already hazy air. Sinn ignored it as he focused his attention on the holo-sight of his sniper rifle. The weapon's optic fed the target image directly to his visor's eye lens when they came in direct line with the holo-sight. The end of the long pulse rifle's muzzle rested on a sheared off section of wall, facing the enemy's battle lines.

The mortar round had been part of a saturation barrage, meant to keep the Peacekeepers to the east of his current position pinned down and from advancing toward the Scarran lines.

Neither side in the conflict knew that a third party had entered the arena.

He had scanned the battlefield in hopes of finding a target, but all the Scarrans commanding the line were further back, safely out of range. So he had to settle for prey of lesser value.

The Charrid who was acting as spotter for the mortar crew popped his helmeted head up for another look at their opponents, and Sinn settled the cross hairs of his sight on its head. The Scarran henchman placed a set of oculars to his eyes and began scanning the Peacekeeper lines for new targets for his mortar teams.

Sinn's finger squeezed the trigger of the rifle, and it bucked against his armored shoulder as a concentrated pulse bolt, barely as wide as his little finger, spat from the barrel.

Down range, a small hole drilled through the spotter's helmet, and the Charrid's head exploded a split-microt later. The rest of its body was flung backward into the trench it had been hiding in.

Sinn calmly drew the gun back in and leaned it up against the wall beside him. It would be awhile before any of the Charrids had the nerve to stick their heads out again.

He imagined right now the Charrids in the trench-line were fighting amongst themselves as to who would be the next unlucky one to act as spotter for the mortar crews. Until then, the mortars would just have to fire blind, guessing as to where the Peacekeeper positions were.

If Sinn were lucky, maybe one of the Scarran commanders would venture out to the front trench to investigate the hold up in firing coordinates, and he would get a shot at him.

A moment later a pebble rolled along the floor, followed quickly by a second. He didn't reacted, he knew who it would be. The small stones were meant as a signal that a friendly was about to join him.

A dark figure detached from the nearby shadows and soundlessly moved over to join him crouched by the covering wall. The new Shrike was smaller and carried a standard Peacekeeper pulse rifle, but still wore a hooded-cloak and battle helmet with face visor. The black armor that covered the second Enforcer was designed to fit a female body.

His secured comm link switched open a microt later.

"Horgo and Vennic have discovered a opened way behind the Scarran lines," Istrish announced over the channel. "There are three Imperium Scalies directing the fighting about eighty drenc in from the main trench line."

"Good," Sinn simply replied. He reached over and picked his rifle back up, then slung it muzzle downward over one shoulder.

"What do you plan on doing?" the Sykaran Shrike asked.

"To kill Scarrans," he responded as he strode passed her to retrace her route. The female hurried to catch up with the taller male Shrike.

"But what about us?" Istrish asked as she drew along side him. "What are your orders?"

Sinn halted and turned the gaze of his visor's red lens on her.

"I have told you… you can do whatever you wish," he said. "I did not ask or wish for your group to accompany me."

"We go where you go. We fight where you fight," Istrish replied stubbornly. "You freed us from slavery to the Syndicate. We will help you bring it and the Scarran society that spawned it down."

The taller Shrike regarded her silently for a few microts, and then said, "Then you are a group of fools."

He started walking again, and Istrish kept up.

"You are not the only one who burns for revenge," she continued.

Sinn issued a sharp bark of laughter over the comm channel.

"Revenge is only a small part… and not worth dying over for you children," the tall Shrike said. "You should all go while you can, and leave me in peace to do what I must. I don't want to be responsible for you."

The girl kept even pace with him, even as they dodge through the rubble.

"None of us may know the more dire curse of being an augmented Enforcer, but that does not give you the right to tell us that we cannot fight for the cause you started. Those of us who remained, chose to continue the fight to free our other brothers and sisters still under the collar."

"The you might just get the blotching chance to die for your cause," Sinn told her coldly.

"Then it will be a good death," Istrish countered.

"A trezog's death."

"Would it be anymore foolish to court death for a wrong done to a woman?" Istrish suddenly asked.

Sinn halted and whirled on her, his metal-clad hand seizing her around the throat and slamming her into a support pillar. The column chipped and cracked as armor plate impacted it.

"Never mention her again," Sinn said, the warning plain even over the comm link between them.

Istrish wasn't concerned for her safety. Her armor had adsorbed most of the force of hitting the quickcrete pillar, and not even he could come close to crushing the armor that protected her neck. She did however care greatly for the somber man calling himself "Sinn", and she would gladly endure anything – even abuse from him – if it helped ease whatever tormented her savior.

He had rescued her and most of the other ex-Enforcers in their group from the Black Syndicate, and thanks to him others had gone on to do the same for other Syndicate slaves, slowly increasing their numbers.

The entire group respected Sinn, but she had been the first he freed, and the one to have gotten closest to him – if one could actually ever be said to be close to the man.

It had been difficult, but she eventually had learned some of his story, about his escape from his House with a female thief and how they became separated. How he had found her again, only this time plagued by something left inside him by the Syndicate… something that apparently drove them apart once more. She wasn't clear on the ending of the tale, only that the girl believed he was dead… and he wanted it that way for some reason.

She'd have to be blinded and a total zeb-mib-itch not to see how much that decision weighed heavily on the man. She also wondered if it might have something to do with why he medicated himself with that herbal root he always carried. The reason for that, he would never explain.

"It is the truth though," she insisted firmly, "At least we are clear on why we chose the path we have. It is with respect from a Shrike to her Master Shrike, that I only wish for you to be just as clear also. It is as a friend that I would beg you to go to her, and at least let her know you still live. I would want to know if it were someone important to me."

Sinn eased his hold on her neck and eventually let go.

"It is not that simple," he said. "And I have asked you not to call me that."

He turned and started walking again. Istrish followed just as before. The group had taken to reviving the old Shrike legends amongst themselves. In a way it was a form of therapy to combat the horrors of what had been done to them, to turn the twisted version of the Syndicate Shrike Enforcer into the more heroic Shrike Warriors/Agents of ancient myth, and salvage something from their damaged lives.

It worked too; many of the freed Enforcers had even started to refer to the loose group as a Clan. It was positive reinforcement… helped along by Marktaal who was the group's sole source of the almost long lost romantic myth of the warrior Shrikes.

It was to Sinn's quiet loathing though that the members of the troop began looking to him, and calling him "Master Shrike".

They soon met up with the other two members of the assembly that had followed the reluctant Sinn on to the battleground between the Scarrans and Peacekeepers. Try as he might, Sinn could not persuade the freed Enforcers from coming with him, and he was hesitant to order them not to come. Doing so would have amounted to admitting he was in fact their leader.

And he was doing all within his limited power to refute that misconception at every opportunity.

As they joined the others, the Vorcarian Shrike, Horgo, dipped his armored head in a slight gesture of respect – which was rare for the spirited Bloodtracker.

"We have found a hole in the Scarran's defensive line that we can take advantage of, Master," Horgo reported.

Sinn's metal facemask was of course expressionless, but Istrish could well imagine that the Sebacean male wore a look of annoyance at the Bloodtracker's use of the title underneath it.

"Horgo and I have completed a recon inside the lines, Master Shrike. Their security is lax once inside as is Charrid habit," continued Vennic. The Szalned Shrike was head and shoulders taller than Sin, and his four arms made him a dangerous combative in hand-to-hand combat – even without the Enforcer armor and brace blades. He looked even more impressive standing besides the diminutive Horgo, who even with armor was still somewhat smaller in stature than Istrish.

Still the Bloodtracker was a vicious fighter, and he and Vennic had found that they worked extremely well as a team.

"We remained undetected until we returned to report our success," Vennic continued on. "The three Scarrans are stationed in a make-shift bunker approximately sixty drenc from the second 'fall back' trench line."

Istrish turned to him and suggest her first idea on an attack plan.

"We can go in covertly and eradicate the Scalies in the command center first, then on our way back out to link back up with Marktaal and his group, we decimate as many of the Charrids on the line as we can. Perhaps we can leave a big enough hole in their perimeter that the Peacekeepers can take advantage of it to wipe the rest of them out."

"Logical," put in Vennic, "Let them finish the job for us."

"Any plan where Scarrans die… I like," growled the Vorcarian cheerfully. "What say you, Master?"

Sinn regarded his three companions for a few microts. In truth, he carried little… as long as the Scarrans were wiped out. He kept to himself the disillusionment that had been building inside him. They have killed countless Imperium Scarrans during the conflict, but that did little to harm what he really wanted to hurt – the Black Syndicate. True, also the war was a drain on some Syndicate operations, and a few of their agents had had the poor luck to be operating near the front lines when the rogue Shrikes came through.

Still they had not done the damage to the organization he would have liked. The Imperium unofficially allowed the Black Syndicate to exist and operate, but the Imperium was now only one of many pillars on which the Syndicate supported itself.

It was coming time that he admitted that his efforts were only going in circles by working within the war to bring the Scarrans down. It was nearing time to attack the Syndicate more directly.

Istrish had been right, he courted death not only for the wrong that had been done to him and for revenge, but for what he had lost… or more, for who he could never have because of what he now was.

The voice in his head let him know it was grinning despite the drug in his blood system that dulled it.

Yes, he would soon go, leave this war behind… and this group of freed Shrikes, who oddly enough just might be safer remaining to fight on their own. He would disappear, perhaps for a few cycles if need be, while he watched and learn, gathering intelligence on the Syndicate. Looking for a weakness he could use while also amassing weapons and whatever else he would need. The mad old woman's root surely gave him enough time now?

Then when the Syndicate Houses least expected it, he would enact his vengeance.

The other Shrikes were still gazing at him as these new thoughts passed through his mind in just a few microts. Finally he hitched his slung rifle around and into his hands, then said, "I say if you insist on joining me, lets get to work."

Tessen Korr opened his eyes from the dream memory to gaze up at the canvas roof of his tent. That day on the battlefield when he decided to part ways with the rogue Shrikes seemed so long ago. So much had happen since then, the hardest being the memory of Chiana un-expectantly finding him hiding out in the pit fights.

The Nebari had been obviously in pain from D'argo's loss and she had begged him for a little kindness, even though she thought him a stranger.

And he turned his back on her and walked away.

It seemed everyone he encountered since becoming free from the Syndicate, he had betrayed. The Shrikes he'd helped free, Chiana – countless times now it seemed, and now this blasted serving girl.

Why couldn't people stop expecting so much from him and just leave him in peace? Don't they realize that the only important thing he could accomplish is to destroy the Syndicate? Or at least hurt them as much as he possibly can before dying?

He could live and die with that… if people would just stop getting in his way.

The collar's voice chortled in the back of his mind more clearly at that thought, and he absently reached for his herb pouch to take out a piece of root to chew. Within a few moments the specter in his head sounded further away as the drug took effect.

Still, the herb was taking a little longer to work every time now, and he had to keep upping the dosage. He wondered how much more he could go even with his augmented system before it cease to work totally, or he killed himself by accidental over-dose?

Korr sighed. Information on the Syndicate and its various operations had been harder to acquire than he anticipated. He had managed to gather some credits toward his cause, mostly from his winnings as a pit fighter and what he had made as a mercenary, however it wasn't accumulating fast enough to suit him and he was becoming edgy from the delay.

Mostly because the herb was beginning to lose some of its effectiveness on the collar's ghost.

He frowned as he began to consider one of his backup plans – stealing what he needed from fringe Syndicate operations. He had originally wanted to avoid doing such, as it would draw unwanted attention before he was ready. But his apparent situation was making that the better option now.

Tessen pursed his lips tightly as he thought. This civil war was quickly becoming a distraction, an excuse not to be on with his real plans.

And someplace where he didn't have to think about Chiana.

At least he tried not to think of her often, which was difficult with that obstinate serving girl running around underfoot all the time.

He blew out a hard breath at the reminder of Jaleecee. Before he left he was going to have to see about doing something to take care of her and her brother also.

It would probably put a huge dent in his saved credits, but that couldn't be helped.

"_Why did life have to be so complicated?"_ he asked himself.

No good answer presented itself. The ghost in his head grinned from a distance.


	8. Chapter 7

Haze wiped at the river of sweat that was running into his eyes with one arm, and then tried to refocus his vision more finely on the jungle terrain around him. He scanned the area before him over the top of the open sights of his pulse rifle, looking for the slightest sign or hint of the enemy, but saw nothing but the never-ending bluish-green foliage surrounding the barely perceptible trail before him.

"Anything?" Satuur asked in a tone hushed to just above an audible whisper. The older private was squatted down just a few drenc behind Haze, guarding his back as the pair walked the point position for the rest of their unit.

Haze didn't bother verbally replying, and only slightly shook his head in answer. He endeavored to probe deeper into the bush with his eyes and tried to make it reveal its secrets to him by sheer willpower alone, looking for any possible ambush sites he might have been missing.

"Where the frell is that scout? We haven't seen him since we left our last camp five arns ago" Satuur hissed next in a slightly louder voice. "Our eemas are exposed way the hezmana out here."

Haze broke off his surveillance of the surrounding countryside to toss a quick irritated glare at the other man. He mouthed, _"shut up"_ at the other. The Corporal didn't need the older man to remind him they were out more than a quarter of a metra away from the main body of the unit, more than a quarter of a metra away from relative safety and help of their comrades. The only other _friendly _supposedly somewhere out there with them was Tessen Korr, and like Satuur had just complained, the unusual mercenary scout had not been seen since the patrol started.

The younger Corporal was however fairly certain that if Satuur didn't keep quiet, that his constant griping was going to give them, and their current vulnerability, away to the enemy.

Satuur shot him back a sour look in repayment for the reproachful glare, but he remained silent for the moment in any case.

Haze brought his attention back to the pathway in front of them, and began to slowly creep forward again. He felt more than heard the older Private move along behind him. Satuur might be a royal pain in the eema, but the man could move through the bush just as silently as any of the best troopers.

The younger Corporal and his partner traveled another tenth of a metra down the trail they were patrolling without incident. Haze paused for a few microts to scan a new area, and when he thought it was safe, he took several small steps forward in a combat crouch again.

As usual, Satuur moved up to his former place and took up a guard position, only this time there was a slight rattling of leaves that didn't fit in with either man's movement, at nearly the same instant Satuur suddenly grunted more loudly than was safe or wise to do on purpose, given their current whereabouts in enemy territory. Haze heard the underlying sound of something hard striking flesh under it all.

"Sappers!" Haze half-thought and half-muttered out loud as his training made him reacted. He spun back the way he had come, back toward his teammate and only lifeline, just in time to see Satuur hit the ground hard.

Just to the side of the fallen man, Haze could now make out a heavily camouflaged form bringing a equally well-camouflaged weapon up to bear down on him. The barrel of the rifle looking swollen and fat with a pulse suppressor that was designed to hush the weapon's discharge. In the masked enemy's hands, it was strange to him at the moment how the relatively small bore of the pulse rifle's suppression system still looked as large as a frag cannon while it was pointed at him.

Small arm or cannon… he was still going to be just as dead in a microt either way.

His own rifle was automatically tracking toward the threat, but it still had a long way to travel as he brought it around his body to face what was behind him.

The young soldier already knew without a doubt that he was going to be too late. There was no way he could win this race.

He doubly cursed himself as he caught additional movement out of the corner of his eyes and heard more bushes shaking as another form stepped out of the foliage to the side and just in front of him.

A second sapper chose just that moment to leave his or her concealment as Haze was swinging his own weapon around, and was moving in to outflank him!

"Frell!" he snarled and began to bear down on his weapon's trigger anyway. Maybe he might be able to take the sapper who had taken out Satuur with him, before either of the soldiers managed to kill him.

At the very least, his unsuppressed weapon's fire would alert the rest of the unit behind him that an ambush awaited them somewhere ahead on the trail.

Something made an angry buzz as it passed close to his ear, but he couldn't afford to pay much attention to something that was probably only an insect… considering he was going to be too busy dying in the next few microts.

He vaguely remembered hearing a wet thunk from somewhere behind him, just as the eyes of sapper standing over Satuur abruptly widened in what seemed to be surprise. Then he suddenly changed the direction he was pointing his rifle in, whipping it away from Haze and off to his right, the muzzle climbing high toward the branches of the trees around them.

Something sailed out of the jungle around them, and it took Haze a few stunned microts to realize that it was the scout. Korr was swooping down at Satuur's attacker like some camouflaged bird-of-prey. The scout's forward leg was extended and locked, his booted foot plowing into the man's throat in a perfect blade kick. The scout landed on top of the enemy soldier while his remain foot slammed into the sapper's chest an instant behind the leading one. Korr rode the trooper to the ground.

The man's silenced weapon flew from his hands as he hit the forest floor. Korr kept one foot planted at his throat as he kneeled on the soldier's chest. He then reached up and grapping the man by his chin forced his head upward at an unnatural angle.

The ambusher's neck cracked with a sickening sound, and the sapper stopped struggling as if a switch had been thrown to turn the man off.

All this seemed to happen in the blink of an eye to Haze. His soldier's instincts recovered an instant later and he spun around to see to the ambusher he knew was still behind him.

Only to find the second enemy soldier lying on the ground, his boots kicking out their last dance of life as he finished dying.

Haze looked closer, to find a huge bush knife protruding from the dead man's throat.

Then he remembered the odd buzzing he'd heard just before the scout jumped the first man.

Haze turned back to ask Korr how he managed to be there in time to catch the sappers. Instead the scout signed him to remain silent with a forefinger to his lips. The green, black, and brown war-paint disguising the mercenary's face making him look like some forest creature from hezmana.

Haze was trained well enough not to ask the mercenary why he wanted total silence. If there were sappers, the scout probably found something worse waiting for them up the trail.

Tessen Korr briefly checked Satuur, and indicated by hand signals that the Private was still alive and only unconscious for the moment.

Korr then rose up from the prone man, and walked around Haze. The Corporal made a curious note that the scout had the odd sniper rifle of his slung upside down across his back as he passed him. Most experienced soldiers, or any soldier that planned on living passed his first patrol, knew better than to carry their main weapon in such a way that it was not quickly accessible while in the enemy's backyard. This simple fact seemed to escape Korr, or it just didn't matter to him.

In the last cycle and a half of his military service, Haze had met many men, and some women, who were dangerous and deadly with just their hands and feet alone. Certainly the scout fell into that category, what he had just seen proved that, even if the stories he'd already heard from reliable friends and comrades within the company who had witnessed Korr in action hadn't already convinced him before then.

Still, not even those other dangerous soldiers he'd known would keep their weapons slung while in a hot zone. Tessen Korr did seen to march to his own drummer though. He moved around confidently through the bush as if he were surrounded by the armor a heavy tank and armed with a primed plasma cannon.

The younger man strangely got the impression from the scout's bearing the he intended to use the rifle only as a last resort in his vocation… at least for the foreseeable time being.

Korr made it to the sapper he'd killed with the thrown knife, and without ceremony, he yanked the blade free of the corpse and wiped it clean on the dead man's shirt before returning it to his thigh sheath.

The knife was fairly large and designed to be used not only for hand-to-hand combat, but also for slashing a path through jungle terrain when needed. It was common issue for every grunt out in this type of field.

Haze wondered how the scout managed to throw such a cumbersome blade with such accuracy from wherever he had been hidden.

It was something of a game with the rank and file troopers in their off time to make wagers and see who could throw the heavy blades at a stump located back at the firebase, and have it stick. A few manage to do it at a few paces; even less managed to master the technique at just slightly longer distances. In his memory, he couldn't rightly recall at the moment if he ever heard of the scout participating in the gambling. He made a mental note to himself to ask around, and if Korr did join in, Haze was going to place a few credits of his own on the strange man.

The mercenary left the body and silently moved back to the path.

Still using hand signals, Korr invited the Corporal to join him in a crouch on the trail floor. In the dirt there between them, the scout quickly sketched out the layout of a rapid-fire pulse cannon position just ahead of them, marking its distance from their current position and the approximate compliment of men manning it.

Haze nodded in understanding. The sapper team was suppose to take out the point-team without noise or sign of struggle… allowing for the rest of the unit to freely walked directly into the cannon's kill zone without a clue.

Both sides in the fight used that trick, or one just like it.

Tessen then indicate that Haze was suppose to gather up Satuur and retreat to the rest of the unit, while he saw to the removal of the ambush position.

Haze shook his head vigorously. With sign language he told the scout that Satuur would be find where he was and that the unit would come across him shortly. It would be better for Haze to accompany Korr and help take out the cannon, as it was the more important objective at the moment.

Tessen oddly enough was wearing simple plastiglass occulars meant to shade one's eyes from the brightness of the sun. He wondered how the man could see anything wearing the smoky-dark filters under the jungle canopy… but apparently the man could see just fine with them on.

They however keep the Corporal from getting a read on the scout's eyes or what he was thinking, but the set jaw and deep frown the man now wore was enough to tell Haze that Korr wasn't pleased with his alternate plan.

The scout shook his head just as vigorously as Haze had, and then stubbornly pointed at Satuur and then back down the trail toward the approaching company.

Haze repeated his negative gesture, then turning toward Satuur, indicated that they could shove his body under the foliage if the scout was worried about another enemy party finding him before the unit arrived.

He turned back to Korr to again insist he was going with him… only to find the man gone!

"Son of a…" Haze murmured as he glanced around for a sign of the scout.

He found and heard nothing.

Half an arn later, Haze and a recently recover Satuur stood with the rest of the unit inside the enemy's cannon bunker. The four-man crew was dead, to the last man. Killed with a heavy bladed weapon in a very quick and efficient manner.

Satuur chewed on a med-relief stick in order to cure the slight headache he still had from the sapper ambush. He shifted the stick around in his mouth as he inspected the scene, before removing it to spit on the ground by his boot. He glanced at the sputum, and was satisfied to see that it no longer contained blood from where he'd cut the inside of his mouth.

He returned the stick to his mouth, and glanced over at Haze, catching the other man's eye right away.

"This dren ain't natural," he said so only Haze could hear the comment.

The Corporal gazed back at him in an enigmatic way.

"He saved your eema," Haze told him just as lowly. He glanced quickly around, to make sure no one else was near enough to overhear. "He saved both our eemas back there."

"Still ain't right," Satuur said.

"Just be glad he's on our side," the younger man countered.

"Is he?" Satuur asked with a lifted eyebrow, then he threw his weapon over one shoulder and walked away, leaving Haze to his own thoughts on the matter.

AcRooks somehow appeared at his elbow without him noticing a micron later.

"Admiring our spooky friend's handiwork," he asked unceremoniously.

"What? No… just thinking," Haze answered him.

AcRooks shrugged his shoulders as if it didn't matter and he was only making conversation.

"I take it Tuuri was being his usual suspicious self just a moment ago?" he asked.

"Yeah, the usual dren," Haze replied. "Not much else to give any mind to."

AcRooks smiled. "So if it's not out resident conspirator-expert… then I wager your thoughts are on something much more pleasant and alluring."

"Now what are you rambling on about?" Haze asked with real confusion.

"The serving girl, dear boy," AcRooks asked, putting on a stuffy high-class voice that was meant to be annoying. "Your thoughts are settled on our ravishing beauty of a tea server. On skin the color of alabaster fire-pearls. Hair like spun virgin Hynerian Sea-kilpt silk. Lips of the purest Sheyang Obsidian…"

"Stop it."

"Hips that could stop a man's heart in an instant."

"AcRooks…"

"Breasts that make a man dream of climbing the purest mountains…"

"AcRooks!"

"And who can blame a growing stout lad with serious innate needs such as yourself for doing so?"

"Stop it," Haze said almost shyly as he turned away from the carnage before him. For some reason it seemed like a transgression to think about the pretty half-Nebari girl in the presence of such butchery.

"Don't talk about her like that."

AcRooks gave him a look of mock surprise as he followed him out of the bunker.

"So… at last a true reaction," the other Corporal said as he came even with Haze. "So what are you going to do about it?"

"Do about what?" Haze half-snapped, coming to a halt and turning to face his friend.

"When are you going to get off your big farm-boy eema and asked to see the young lady socially?"

"I'm not!" Haze exclaimed. "I can't ask a girl like her…"

"Yada, yada, yada-fark!" AcRooks interrupted him. "Ask her before someone else does and wins her away from you, dud-round!"

Haze opened his mouth the reply, but could only stutter at his friend.

"Look," AcRooks said, "I'm your friend and mentor…"

"Mentor?" Haze sputtered, with some amusement on his face now.

"Silence, your mentor is speaking," AcRooks commanded with a warning finger. "Where was I? Oh yes… as your vastly more experienced mentor in affairs of the heart…"

Haze rolled his eyes. "You're certifiable," he said.

"It's my duty to point out to you," AcRooks continued, ignoring the interruption, "That you not only almost got your lazy eema shot off today… but almost got it ended in a very ugly way. Therefore, it would behoove you to act on your attraction to young Jaleecee before its too late. Do you want to die knowing you didn't have the mivonks to even try to impress the girl?"

Haze glowered at him for a moment.

"I hate it when you make sense," he muttered. "It just proves that there is something seriously wrong with the world then."

"I'm glad we both agree on my brilliance!" the other soldier said with a smile. "Now my suggestion is when we get back from patrol, you hit the showers, put on your best uniform – after applying a generous amount of cologne, because trust me, you need it."

Haze twisted his lips and shot AcRooks a hand signal that was less than polite. Which only made the other man grin even wider.

"Then you march right over to the mess tent," AcRooks continued, "And ask that fine young specimen of a woman to take a walk with you. Then if you don't blow that to hezmana in a hand-basket by sticking your entire foot – complete with shiny combat boot – into your oral orifice, then you can proceed to the next logical step and ask her to have dinner with you some night."

"What if she says, 'no'?" Haze asked worriedly.

"What if she says, 'yes'? AcRooks countered. "If she shoots you down, at least you'll have tried and you can stop fawning over her… and then proceed to get yourself killed out here in any glorious manner you think is fitting for a farm boy."

Haze's brow furrowed in further thought.

"What about her brother?" he asked next.

"Well," AcRooks said with a small smirk. "You could ask him to go for a walk… but I don't think he's your type."

"That's not what I meant!"

"I know. Don't worry about him. Let's just agonize over one hurtle at a time, and get your nerve up to approach the girl on a romantic level first."

"What about Korr?" Haze then brought up.

AcRooks waved that concern off also.

"The scout has firmly claimed several times in public that he has no romantic or other interest in your Jaleecee," he said. "The way lies open for you, but only if you have the courage to travel it. Can't be much more difficult than patrolling out in this goddess forsaken jungle, can it?"

"I suppose not," Haze admitted.

"Besides," AcRooks said off-handedly. "If you don't make a move for her. I just might have to do so myself. And you know how women simply cannot resist my charm and boyish good-looks."

"You're a fenik," Haze told him. "But I guess you're right. If I don't try… then I'll never know if Jaleecee will give me a chance to win her heart. If I die out here knowing I didn't try at all, it'll be worse. I'll do what you suggest as soon as we return to the base."

"That's the spirit!" AcRooks exclaimed while striking him firmly on the shoulder in a friendly and proud way. "I have taught you well, young apprentice."

Haze again rolled his eyes at his friend as they walked over to join the rest of the company as the unit gathered to form-up and move out once more.

Curiously he performed a brief search for the mercenary, but from experience he knew that it wasn't Korr's habit to stick around any target he'd engaged. He went in, killed whoever needed killing there, and moved on without waiting for the rest of the company. The unit commanders never seemed to question this practice, in fact they seemed to prefer not seeing the odd scout when out in the bush. As long as he did his job, apparently there was no reason to complain.

Unless there was some major force awaiting them that the main unit needed to know about they wouldn't see Tessen at all during the patrol. Otherwise he would rejoin them sometimes just before they entered the safety of their own lines. You would just turn around and the mercenary would suddenly be there.

Sort of like the way he suddenly disappeared from right beside him not even an arn ago.

The order was given to move out, and Haze set his feet again out on the trail way.

His thoughts were now no longer on the patrol as he put his body on automatic and walked, and they certainly were not any longer much on the strange scout known as Tessen Korr.

Instead they remained on a certain young girl with Nebari gray skin, with hair that always smelled of the sweetest herbs no matter what task she was performing… and the most brilliant smile he'd ever seen.

He found that his new upcoming personal mission upon his return to the firebase left him with a cold feeling deep in the pit of his stomach. Much colder than any patrol deep into enemy territory ever had left him with.

At the same time, he had never before been as excited as he was now at the prospect of such a daring undertaking.

He didn't know if that was a good thing or not… but the thought put a certain spring into his step that he'd never had before. It was probably a good thing that barring any further enemy action, he wouldn't be taking point again on this tour. There was probably no way now that he could keep his young mind centered on that business while thinking about Jaleecee.

He looked at AcRooks and not being able to help himself, he smiled at his friend for talking him into the brave enterprise.

AcRooks smile back knowingly, obviously glad that his friend had chosen to heed his advice.

The only further consideration the young Corporal spared the scout at all on the return trip, was the thought that Korr was somewhere out there before them, using his peculiar skills to clear their way back home.

He wished the strange mercenary all the best of luck and speed, so he could ask the girl that he dreamed of, what he had wanted to ask her for so long now… just that much sooner.


	9. Chapter 8

Korr was inside his bivouac, using a basin of cold water and harsh soap to wash the stubborn camouflage paint from his face. The patrol had been out for over a planetary day and a half, and he was sorely in need of a shower… and a good night's sleep.

Unlike the rest of the professional government soldiers who were able to hit the showers almost right away upon their return to the main base. Korr didn't have corpsmen to clean and maintain his gear and weapons as they did. Mercenaries had to care for their own equipment.

Not that he would have trusted a low-ranking serviceman to care for this personal gear anyway… and it certainly was something he would never consider asking that girl to take care of. She didn't need to be exposed to the ugly implements of his trade more than she already was. He frowned at the seemingly soft thought he was having. And then tried to convince himself that it was really more the fact that she would probably frell something up trying to care for his weapons, rather than it was that he wanted to shield her from the bald truth about what he did for a living at the moment.

He had no reason to care about her sensitivities in the slightest, or what she thought about him… she was just a pest of a child that he paid to clean his quarters, and that was all!

And sometimes he wondered if that slight convenience was worth the aggravation she caused?

Still, the girl and her brother needed the extra credits he paid her. There was no point in going back on his agreement just because the child became annoying from time-to-time.

He had put up and dealt with far worse for lesser reasons he told himself. He could manage a working relationship with a teenage girl who was in essence just a maid.

If only she did not behave like she was a drill instructor sometimes… or Scarran slave master… or what he imagined an overbearing mother would be like.

… Or like a bond-mate.

That last thought snuck in under his defenses, and his grimace deepened… only because deep down he knew it to be the truest of the assessments he had been idly making.

Goddess! She wasn't even present yet, and that damned girl was already driving him as mad as the ghost of the control collar was anyway!

He shook his head, and pushed the thoughts from his mind. He had equipment to care for and get ready for his next patrol, or in case of a surprise attack on the firebase.

That was the more important and pressing matter at the moment.

The first thing that Korr had always did upon reaching his quarters, before even seeing to his own needs – even something as simple as wiping his war paint off, was to spend the next arn or more breaking his weapons down and giving them a through cleaning. Pulse weapons and their magazines could easily clog in humid or jungle like environments if not stringently cared for.

His bladed weapons had seen heavy use this tour, much more than usual. And he had wondered as he wiped them down with an oiled cloth until he got a chance to spend more time properly re-sharpening them, if he had wielded them more this time to get closer to the enemy… to give them a better chance at killing him?

He shook the thought away in the next moment. He had already decided it was nearly time to move on and see to the real mission in his life – bringing down the Black Syndicate! To avenge himself on the Syndicate House that had made him what he was. To pay them back in their own blood for what they stole from him.

Another Nebari face flashed before his inner eye, and he thrust it away back into the darkness. That part of his life was dead to him.

It was something that was never meant for him to be reaching for.

It was only just another tab that demanded to have paid put to it.

He had no reason to be seeking his own death on this backwater world… or in this meaningless war. He had more important matters awaiting him.

He had only been using blades to keep his pulse weapons and their ammo in reserve for if he needed them in a tight position. It was a tactical decision, nothing more.

It wasn't his fault that the enemy soldiers were too easy to get close to. And war by nature, was a game you only lost at once.

If you couldn't afford the wager… you shouldn't be playing.

That thought froze him for an instant. It applied to him also as well. If he had a more important game waiting for him and his wager… why was he still playing this one?

He needed to go as soon as possible… no more patrols, no more excuses.

He reached for a towel from a stack of clean laundry that waited for him at his return, and just as he wiped his face dry with it; Jaleecee abruptly entered his tent without announcing herself.

"You're back," she said as she came to a halt at his side.

"Obviously," Korr grunted. He tossed the used towel to the ground when he finished with it, vaguely giving a thought to if the girl was going to chide him for doing so, instead of placing it in the bag she designated was for dirty laundry like she always did.

Oddly the girl didn't say anything or didn't notice the transgression of her rules. Instead, she seemed abnormally preoccupied. She twisted her hands before her for a few microts and then asked, "May I ask you a question?"

Tessen sighed, and began unfastening the clasps to his combat vest.

"Make in fast, girl… I want to take a shower," he told her.

The girl harrumphed at his rudeness and then straightened her face to smooth her features again.

"While you were… away," she began, trying to muster as much of her dignity as she could into the question. "Did that one young man, Corporal Haze… ask you anything about me?"

Korr dumped his vest unto his rack and then began to undo his shirt. He paused only long enough to give the girl a minutely puzzled look. He remembered the younger man in question from the ambush, but couldn't fathom why the girl was asking about him, or why the Corporal would be asking him about her?

"I know of him," Korr admitted as he continued to divest himself of more combat gear and clothing. "I can honestly say that neither him or I exchanged words about anything, let alone you. Why do you ask?" the last question he asked out of idle curiosity.

Jaleecee stopped fidgeting for the moment and drew herself straighter.

"Because just moments ago… he approached me inside the mess tent and asked me if I would like to take a walk," she told him.

"A walk to where?" Korr asked distractedly, while gathering up a few of the bigger towels and his shaving kit in preparation for his trip to the nearest shower unit.

"He didn't say. But by his manner, I believe it was a formal prelude to developing a social rapport… with intensions of a possible romantic relationship later on."

"I believe the term you're looking for is _date_," the scout put in bluntly. "Why do you have to use such long-winded terminology to say something that is so simple, girl?"

"There is no need to be so crude about the intricacies of courtship," the girl said with a sour expression on her young pretty face for the man. "On my world, they were handled delicately between a gentleman and a lady of good breeding and standing."

"We are not on your world," Tessen reminded her. "But good for you anyway. Now if that is all… I would like to go get clean so I don't offend the delicacies of any lady or gentlemen of good-breeding that may be wandering around the base."

He moved to leave, but Jaleecee clenched her fists at her sides, and stamped one of her feet on the rough planks that made up the makeshift flooring of the bivouac.

"You do not have to be so tactless!" she intoned. "I thought you might like to know about the overtone Corporal Haze has tended. He inquired as to what you might think about his request."

Korr stopped at the opening of the tent, and used his free hand to rub at his forehead in exasperation.

"Girl, why would you or he care about what I thought?" he asked.

"Because for one reason, you are my patron," the serving girl explained. "Giving that I have no elder family members for the Corporal to petition… it is permissible to inquire of a young lady's employer. If that employer is a person of reputable means… in this case, you will have to do."

Korr ignored the obvious shot at him in the last part of her statement. He only gazed at her with a growing look of annoyance in his strange eyes.

"The Corporal was being very respectful in my view," Jaleecee added firmly.

"How good for him," the scout replied snidely. "Let him go ask your brother then."

"My brother is not even twenty cycles old. He cannot even hold land yet were we back home. I would seek his counsel only as a formality if I were thinking of Bonding with some man, and only because he is my only living relative. He is not old enough nor does he have enough life experience to advise me on whom I chose to court, or in picking a potential mate."

"So you are coming to me on this?" the scout asked in dismay.

"As I said, you are my patron. Thus I seek your guidance."

"Girl, I am not your patron. You clean my quarters and wash my clothing, and then I pay you for the work – nothing more! If you need my blessing or what have you, then you have it…as long as I don't have to be bothered anymore with it. Enjoy your walk."

He turned to duck out the low opening; Jaleecee wrung her hands and stepped forward.

"I thought that you might have a reason to deny his petition!" Jaleecee called to him, not sounding as decorous or noble as she had just a moment ago.

Korr froze and bowed his head for a moment.

"Gods!" he cursed lowly. He knew he should just keep walking, but he looked back at the girl anyway.

"No, Girl, I don't have any reason," he told her firmly. He definitely didn't want to have this discussion with the stubborn half-Nebari again.

She stared at him a moment, searching his features for something, anything at all that would give her a hope.

"Then you don't care?" she finally asked. "You would see me with another? You wouldn't care if another man took me to Bond when you know of my feelings for you?"

"No, Girl… I wouldn't care," he answered firmly, but with no real emotion on his features. He was as cold as metal that made up his guns.

Jaleecee stared blankly at him for a moment, then her thin lips drew into a tight line, and her eyes turned hard.

"So be it then," she said tightly. She stiffened her back and marched toward the opening, nearly pushing him out of the way as she made for the tent's doorway.

She stopped even with him for a few microts, looking straight ahead, her features now a blank wall.

"I formally submit, that our agreement for care of your quarters is over," she told him in an even voice. "I will arrange to pick up any salary due me at a later time."

"That's fine, girl," Korr replied just as expressionlessly.

Jaleecee paused for just a few microts longer, as if waiting for him to say something more. The scout was silent, so she forced herself to give a firm nod to acknowledge the ending of their pact, and then strode forward away from him. Not looking back at all.

Tessen Korr watched the girl go with a sense of mixed feelings, feelings that he didn't enjoy or want to consider in dept.

He was planning on leaving shortly, and he would have had to say good-bye to the girl at any rate. Perhaps this ending was better, and now with the young Corporal's interest in her… maybe the girl would find something more obtainable in the young man, something that had been denied to him.

Happiness.

And hopefully she would forget about her foolish infatuation with him.

He stilled planned on leaving the girl enough credits to take care of herself and her brother for a while at least. He calculated that he had enough funds stashed about the Wraith from his career fighting in the pits alone to hold him for a while as well. He also already had a good portion of his pay as a mercenary converted into Sheyang Trade Script – which was negotiable almost everywhere in the Territories, thanks to the scavenger race's wide spread business dealings.

Twice he had added his mercenary pay to the credits from pit fighting stashed aboard his ship during leaves from fighting this war.

What he had with him now and what was still owed to him could partly go to the boy and girl. If Jaleecee made a go of it with the Corporal, then the three of them should fair moderately well after he had departed.

Perhaps the young soldier would smarten up once he was involved with the girl, and resign his position with the military before he was killed. Then all three could leave and start a life somewhere else.

He could do nothing more for them.

For himself, he had been considering his current financial situation for the last few days. He had enough credits to last him more than half a cycle if he traveled wisely and conserved fuel aboard the Wraith.

It was however, not enough to take on the Syndicate like he originally intended. It was only recently that he was allowing himself to consider the infeasibility of his first plan to acquire funding covertly.

So he would have to get more by other direct and not so convert means.

He had already familiarized himself with numerous Syndicate branch operations. There were several well within the range of the Wraith's current load of fuel. Three were connected to lower Houses that would not draw much attention if someone were to take them down. But only one was productive enough to possibly supply him with what he needed in one swoop.

There wasn't much more to think about other than to put his new plan into motion.

He turned from his quarters and made his way to the nearest of the shower units.

Korr wasn't surprised to find the small shed that contained the unit's cleansing facilities nearly deserted. Most of the returning patrols had already made use of them while he and the other mercenaries took care of their own gear.

And he had discovered that most of the regulars preferred to be somewhere else wherever he showed up if possible, and that included the showers. He was more than aware that he made most of them nervous – but he really didn't care much about that either.

People wanting to get familiar asked too many casual questions. And he just as soon not have that risk if he could avoid it.

Just as he reached the utility's doorway, he glimpsed that Private with the pinched face watching him from a depot of storage crates. The man leaned against the huge boxes, casually examining the scout and obviously not caring if Korr noticed him doing so.

Tessen had just about enough unpleasant distractions for one day, so he paused to return the man's gaze. He noticed the soldier still wore a bandage where the sapper in the ambush had struck him at the base of his neck, at a place his helmet didn't protect. The fact that the scout had saved his life didn't seem to count much with the man, as his eyes turned suspicious while he regarded Korr. Tessen wasn't surprised, he was well aware that the Private disliked him more than most for some reason, and that the man had been spreading idle talk among the rest of the company about Korr for some time.

The scout hadn't paid it much mind, the firebase was a minefield of rumors at any given moment… and actually not all of them centered on himself.

Korr casually wondered about what the Private might do if he knew the actual truth about him, the hearsay he was circulating did not even come close to touching what Tessen Korr really was. He suddenly felt one side of his lip draw upwards in a sneer. The ghost in his head particularly liked that notion, and had reared its ugly little head. It suggested that Korr give Private Satuur an up-close education.

The Private seen the sneer, and had taken it as a form of insolence on the mercenary's part. He spat on the ground in contempt, and drew himself up to his full lanky height. He glared hard one last time at the scout, and then strode off down the pathway to disappear in the activity of the camp.

The scout pushed back the specter in his mind, and absently reached into his pocket for a dried Pa'Looua leaf. He popped it into his mouth and chewed. Within a few microts he felt the mild rush along his senses and, the voice grew somewhat dimmer.

He would have to take a bigger dose of the herb's root to totally silence the collar's ruminate, but that could wait until after he took his long awaited turn in the shower.

Gratefully, he entered the facility and fulfilled his momentary desire to just be clean without further interruption.

The scout emerged from the cleansing utility, feeling much better and perhaps not so much in a foul mood now that he had washed the grime of the field from himself. He had left his dirty clothing in the mass laundry carts, seeing the girl would no longer being taking care of it.

Like the regular soldiers, his uniform clothing was marked and would be returned to him after it was cleaned. At least the mercenaries had that convenience allowed to them for their service.

He decided he was hungry and that sleep could easily wait another arn, and so made for the mess tent to see to that need.

As he approached, he caught a glimpse of Jaleecee and Corporal Haze exiting by a side entrance. The pair was heading away from him, walking side-by-side, the girl with her hands folded in front of her in a prime and proper manner, the young man with his clasped behind his back as if he were ready to fall into parade rest position at any moment. The two occasionally tilting their heads toward the other as they took turns speaking. It was the perfect picture of a respectful and innocent walk taken by a young couple getting to know each other.

Nebari were notably sensitive to their surroundings, and Jaleecee being half Nebari must have sensed his gaze, for she abruptly glanced back over her shoulder to notice him.

Until then, Korr himself had not been aware that he had paused on the path at seeing the young couple.

Something of the picture they presented struck a chord within his memory he'd rather have repressed… if not completely forgotten.

The girl just as abruptly turned back, and in a moment of what must have been sheer scandal for the strangely proper young woman, she slid her arm through the Corporal's to link them at the elbow.

Haze actually missed a step at the unexpected gesture, but he recovered quickly. He suddenly seemed to stand taller, and his back actually drew into a straighter line if that were at all possible. The young man almost visibly swaggered as he escorted the lovely girl through the camp for all to see.

Berret felt the world tilt beneath his feet, as he recalled a time when he was walking arm-in-arm with a Nebari girl. Chiana held onto his arm because at the time she had been blind, and needed his guidance and support. But he still remembered the odd thrill he had, of having her walking next to him. The point where their arms linked was the center of the universe as far as he was concerned. And it didn't matter that clothing and armor separated their flesh, he had never felt more connected to another living being than at those times.

He knew outwardly he wouldn't have shown it… and he doubted he wouldn't have been capable of it given what he was. But had he been able, he thought he might have just looked the same way that Corporal Haze did at that very moment.

It was the closest to any sort of happiness Berret had ever come to.

It was the closet he would ever get.

Korr suddenly shook his head, and the world shifted once again until he was back in a camp full of soldiers in the midst of a nearly primitive war.

He had been thinking of himself as that other person, and silently cursed the gaffe. That person was dead, and perhaps had never really existed at all. Never again would he wear that name, let it be forgotten, or wore by someone more worthy than he of that gray waif's gift.

For the moment, he was Tessen Korr.

Mercenary.

Scout.

Paid killer… and that was all.

Tomorrow, he might be someone else… for a while.

In the end, no matter how many times he remade himself in his undertaking, he will only be Shrike 457 of High House Arckatius – Rogue Enforcer.

Some religions he'd read about had a concept of a vengeance spirit… an Avenging Angel!

He could never be something so pure of strength and fortitude. No, he could never be an avenging angel.

He was more like a fallen one… one that would return home one final time to extract his vengeance.

The specter in his mind like the concept, and for the second time that he could remember, Korr was in complete agreement with the mad spirit inside him.

Let him die there. Let it all be finally finished and done with. So long as he could lie down and rest, and stop fighting this madness left inside his skull, as long as he took that bastard Arckatius and his entire Syndicate House with him, it would be the best of trades in the end.

He could never be the sort of person that Jaleecee wished him to be.

He was never meant to be Chiana's Berret either.

If he ever had one real regret… it would be that he failed at that the most.

He spared Haze and Jaleecee one last look. Girl… you have no concept about how much better off you are at this moment, he thought silently to himself.

Tessen Korr suddenly turned his back on the strolling young couple before they could be lost to sight, and entered the mess tent.


	10. Chapter 9

John tapped his fingers impatiently on the bar top, and waited for the barkeep to finish his now abnormally long conversation with another patron, who was obviously a long-time regular. Both men had their heads close together over the scarred counter, and both men spared Crichton and his group a few suspicious glances every now and then.

Whenever they did look his way, John waved a finger to get the bartender's attention… only to have the big framed man turned away and go back to speaking with the other customer in hushed tones.

Crichton sighed after about the fifth time of being ignored, and chalked the treatment up to that fact that he and Aeryn were in effect taking up a good third of the total length of the bar itself… that is, the two of them and the seven heavily armed and armored Hynerian Shock Troopers that also surrounded them.

Surprisingly, for being Hynerian Elite Guard, all seven were humanoid, mostly Sebaceans as far as John could tell. It shouldn't have been too surprising Crichton later realized, as the Hynerian Empire consisted of over 600 billion subjects, not all of them actually Hynerians. Chance alone said that some of the member worlds were bound to have been run-off Sebacean colonies.

"Are you sure Pip would have hit this dive at some point of her stay?" he asked his wife, more for something new to do other than look at the pair of men at the other end of the bar who were pointedly paying no heed to him.

Aeryn nodded.

"This dren-hole is the only place this side of the spaceport that sells chilled Gromlinc. Gromlinc is the only drink that Chiana likes better than Reslak. She would been here at some time just for that alone," the ex-Peacekeeper replied. "Besides…" she added while pulling out her tracking device. "My tracker registers an isotope maker from the tag I left on all her clothing here. Something you're piece of shop-made dranit is not able to detect because it never occurred to you to add such a simple feature."

Crichton blew air through his lips to make a rude noise.

"Yeah… so your tracker has better doodads, and you have best toys – you win," he said. "Now if only we can get Sunshine down there's attention. I think its pretty safe to say he's ignoring us."

"He probably doesn't like our frelling entourage," Aeryn added in a tone that said she pretty much felt likewise about their guards. "I'll show you how to get noticed, Crichton."

The slim woman drew her pulse pistol from her thigh-holster, and started banging the butt of the weapon on the bar top.

"Hey! You! Yes, you! Service down here… now!" she yelled nearly at the top of her lungs.

She never stopped slamming her pistol down repeatedly onto the wooden counter, making an awful racket.

Finally the barkeep straightened up and gave them both an acerbic look. He muttered something that could only have been a curse, then tossed his cleaning rag over one shoulder and began to walk down the length of the bar their way.

"Nice… crude and rude, but nice," John told his wife, as he made a show out probing his nearest ear with one finger to test the newest damage to his hearing. "But what would you have done if he still stiffed you?" he asked.

Aeryn raised an eyebrow at the question as she snapped her weapon back into its holster.

"I would have shot him in the leg of course," she told him.

"That's what I love about you… still no social skills at all," the human replied with a slight grin. He then wiped it from his features as the bar man came within earshot.

"Hi," said John, giving the man his best friendly smile. "My name is John…"

" I don't give a frell. What the hezmana do you want?" the other man asked bluntly, and not very pleasantly.

The smile died on Crichton's face. _So much for a good first impression_, he told himself.

"Well, we're looking for a friend…" he started to say again.

"I haven't seen him," the man behind the counter snapped shortly before he could finish.

"It's a _her_," Aeryn countered with a caustic displeased look of her own.

"Then I haven't seen _her_ either. Order something or get the frell out of my refreshment house."

Crichton tried to smile again and save the quickly dying situation, but the look came out forced and far from believable to even him.

"Look, we have a good reason to believe she was here," he continued in a reasonable tone. "Let us show you a holophoto and we'll be out of here as soon as you tell us what you know."

The bigger bar man placed both meaty hands on the bar top and leaned closer to John and Aeryn.

"Not interested, dren-holes! Now get out if you're not drinking anything. I need the room for paying customers." He shot a dirty look at the armored soldiers standing around the couple.

"Yeah… looks real busy," Crichton couldn't help himself but to say, glancing around at the five other customers sitting around at various tables, each drinking quietly and alone.

"That's because some sawed-off little runt of a tratnik is taking up half my tavern with his frelling body guards. What's the matter, not man enough to protect yourself… or your woman?"

John frowned but held his tongue; he already hadn't helped his case by letting his frustration speak for him just a moment ago. He heard Aeryn draw a quick intake of breath, and he held up his hand to cut-off what he knew was going to be a steaming tirade, full of swearing, threats, and promises to remove some of the bar man's more vital internal organs with her bare hands.

Luckily, his wife hadn't quite yet reached her boiling point, because the outburst and bloodshed didn't happen just then. It seemed she was going to let her husband handle the situation for a few microts more, but John knew it was just a near thing, judging by the way Aeryn darkly grumbled beneath her breath.

As soon as the big barkeep had leaned in toward the couple and became belligerent, the Hynerian unit leader, who was no slouch himself in the height and meaty hands department, took a protective step forward.

"I'm not impressed with your dog," the barkeep sneered as he noticed the soldier move closer. "Not even real Peacekeepers, Hynerian Guard by the look and smell of Hynerian mudpuppy dren on them."

The unit leader said nothing also, but John could hear the big man with the graying mustache and hair growl under his breath also, almost giving Aeryn a run for her money.

_Great… just great, now I have two pissed off Sebaceans to deal with,_ John thought to himself. _"I don't know which I should fear more… the armored giant, or my wife?"_

Aeryn herself was more than aware of the big soldier starting to hover, and the ex-Peacekeeper grew even more annoyed. It would be the day when she couldn't beat the living gris out of an insolent bartender – not matter how big he was.

"We don't want any trouble," John tried with the barkeep.

"Then leave, nik-nik trat."

"After you look at the frelling photo and tell us what we want to know, then we'll leave," Aeryn nearly barked.

The man looked at her, and grinned snidely.

"Well, you can stay. I can always use another tralk hanging around the place to make things more interesting," he said nastily.

Crichton almost closed his eyes because he couldn't help but see blood coming.

Before either John or Aeryn could reply or react much further, the big Hynerian Guardsman behind them strode the rest of the way forward and reached over the bar with an arm that seemed a metra long. He grabbed the bartender by the back his head before the man realized what was going on, and slammed it down hard on the counter-top once.

The couple both took a few involuntary steps backward, and automatically drew their pistols while going back-to-back to cover each other, fully expecting trouble from the four or five regular patrons scattered around the tavern.

They didn't have to bother, as the six other troopers already had their pulse rifles leveled out at the barroom as soon as their leader made a move.

The huge unit commander next took the barkeep by his filthy shirt and dragged him over the bar top, to let him flop unceremoniously over onto the floor with a thump.

John looked around, and saw that none of the patrons, including the man the bartender had been recently talking to, had bothered even leaving their seats. In fact, only one or two even watched what was developing, and only with a casual mild interest at that. The rest of them just ignored what was going on, and gave their full attention to whatever was in the mugs and glass bottles before them.

_This really is a dive,_ John thought silently to himself again, with a tiny shake of his head.

The Hynerian soldier reached down and picked the dazed man up as if he weighted nothing, and threw him face down on the bar-top, only this time on their side of it.

"Officer Sun and Commander Crichton asked you a question, Nurfer," the armored man said, in a low-pitched voice that was reasonably soft for the moment, but that anyone could tell would boom out and likely hurt ears if the man wished it. He was a man that was use to command and being obeyed, that was obvious. "It would be in your very best interest to cooperate," he finished, as he lifted the barkeep up several drench clear of the bar and slammed him down on it again.

The man expelled air in a loud whoosh as he hit, but he held up both hands in the air to signal surrender.

"All right! All right… I'll look at their frelling photo!" the man cried. "Just let me up!"

"Very wise," the soldier said, and then added a slap to the back of the other man's head as a reminder to behave before letting him rise.

The barkeep got his shaky feet under him again, and took a moment to rub at the back of his head, which John knew had to sting from the slap the big trooper had laid on it.

"He's all yours, sir, ma'am," the unit leader told them both as he stepped away, but not too far away. Aeryn eyed the soldier critically for a moment. The man bared her scrutiny without flinching or even looking uncomfortable for a few microts, and then added, "Just doing your light work, ma'am."

The ex-Peacekeeper's delicate eyebrow shot upward at the Hynerian trooper's comment.

"What's your name… Sergeant, is it?" she asked, while squinting at the man's rank insignia. She wasn't all that familiar with the Hynerian Guard ranking system just yet.

"Yes, ma'am. Joban Rickler… First Sergeant of the 1st Elite Hynerian Guard at your service, ma'am," he replied.

"Sergeant Rickler," Aeryn repeated, while nodding her thanks for the courtesy the big man was showing her as another soldier. "You, I like," she added with a slight grin.

"Thank you, ma'am. Anytime."

"Okay, then. Sorry for the trouble," John told the barkeep.

The man nodded, sparing a glance at the large armored man who was standing off to one side, still within arms' reach of him. Sergeant Rickler stood with said massive arms folded across his chest and merely cocked his head slightly to let the bar man know he was being scrutinized closely by the soldier for the slightest hint of any further trouble.

"Please just show me your photo and lets get this over with," the bartender said meekly.

"Oh right," said John, as he dug into a pocket and produced a personal holo-imaging device. He flicked the device on with a thumbnail, and an image of Chiana shimmered into existence in the air above it.

"We're looking for this Nebari girl. She's a friend of ours," he explained.

The man eyes the holophoto for only an instant, and then let out a huge groan.

"I should have known you'd have something to do with _her_!" he said before anyone could ask.

"So you have seen her?" John asked to verify.

"Seen her???" The barkeep barked. "She came in her and destroyed half my refreshment house! She beat the dren out of three of my regular customers… one of them still has all three of his legs in casts! I never in a thousand cycles would have thought that something so little could reek so much havoc in less than a tenth of an arn."

"The havoc part sounds like her," Crichton admitted. "But you said she was here less than a quarter arn, and she got dragged into a brawl?"

"Got dragged into? She started it! She was pretty, not much like what we usually get around here…"

"I can imagine that," Aeryn broke in.

The bartender slightly frowned at the jibe, but decided it would be best for him to ignore it… considering the big guardsman still standing there.

"They were just being friendly, the boys were just trying to get her attention… nothing harmful. But she was kinkoid and just wanted to fight. The boys tried to back off but she wouldn't let them, started throwing punches and the boys had to fight back because she was all over them like a Hezmana Cat. I saw her go down a couple of times but she was right back up and fighting like nothing happened."

Aeryn pursed her lips as the man told his story.

"That… doesn't sound like Chiana at all," she said.

"I agree," her husband added. "Pip's a lover not a fighter… if she can avoid it. What happened next?" John asked the bar man.

"It happened so fast, but after she beat the Hezmana out of those boys I pulled out my Electro-stun gun that I keep behind the bar and made her leave. She just stopped what she was doing, gave me this creepy smile that gave me the hubberjibs… sort of like there was something crazy going on in her head, you know what I mean? Like she enjoyed it all."

Aeryn and John both shared a glance. That behavior sounded very familiar to them indeed.

"Yeah, we get the idea," John said. "What next?"

"Not much," the man continued. "At first I thought she was going to try me and the stun gun next… and to tell you the truth, I was being to have my doubts that the stunner would even stop her! But she just dropped the guy she had been punching – he was already out cold anyway, gave me that frelled-up grin of hers, and then just stood up and started heading for the door."

"Then she left?" asked the ex-Peacekeeper.

"Well. Not just then. She had to wait for the eema-hole she came in with to get up from the bar and go with her. Took his goddess damn time of it too! He was laughing so hard while she trashed my tavern."

"Why didn't you mention this other guy before?" Crichton broke in.

The barkeep shrugged. "You weren't asking about that crazy Nurfer, just this girl. He mentioned something during the fight that he was helping her with something, and how entertaining he thought the fight she started was. I couldn't pay much attention to what he was blabbering after that, because I was worrying about how I was going to replace all the tables and chairs that were being smashed up in the brawl."

"A name," Aeryn nearly growled. "What is this man's name and where can he be found?"

"The man who said he was helping your friend…" the bar man started to say.

The double swinging doors of the refreshment house suddenly burst opened, the twin wings striking the walls with a double bang – and cutting the bartender off.

A new figure dressed in a long tattered black duster that had seen better days backed in. The coat's collar was pulled up high over his neck and partly covering a head of wild shaggy dark hair, the individual strangely backed another two or three steps further into the refreshment house.

He came to a stop and dramatically paused for just a microt or two, and abruptly spun around to thrust out a pair of battered old pulse pistols in front of him.

"Reach for the sky, mother-frellers!" the new man suddenly yelled out. "This is…a…hold…up…"

His speech just as suddenly dragged to a stuttering halt as he suddenly realized that he faced a wall of armored troopers with their weapons raised and locked on him, which he was certainly not expecting at all by the expression on his face.

"…Is him!" the barkeep finished, while pointing an excited forefinger the newcomer's way.

"Oh dren," the black-coated man muttered. He then smiled somewhat innocently through the razor stubble covering his roguish face, and then took a step back as he raised his guns to point at the ceiling. "Wrong refreshment house," he said apologetically, and then turned to walk back out the doorway.

"Don't move, eema-hole!" barked Joban Rickler as he took several steps forward. His armored footsteps sounding like thunder on the tavern's wooden planked flooring. The man in the black coat tensed, and the entire room heard him swear as he slowly turned back around.

"Look friend," he said, with his best 'friendly and harmless' smile, as the sizeable soldier came to a halt before him. The man's eyes had to travel upwards to reach the unsmiling ones of Joban Rickler. The new man swallowed hard then, the Sergeant was more than just simply impressive up close. "I didn't mean any harm. See? My guns aren't even loaded." He showed the soldier the empty butts of his pistols to prove the magazine wells were indeed empty.

The barkeep sighed heavily. "He comes in here once a weeken at least to try and rob the place," he informed the others. "I give him a bottle of cheap Reslak just to get him out of my hair. Claims to be some big-time bandit named, Aldwar Muddoe or something."

"Its Murdough… Andar Murdough!" the new man said testily. "And I am a famous bandit," he added with a proud suave smile. "I'm wanted on ten planets and by the Peacekeeper themselves in several districts. You should be grateful that I even grace this establishment. Most any other refreshment houses would be glad to have a celebrity of my notoriety as a patron."

"Goddess please don't ask him anything else," groaned the bartender. "Or he'll drag out all those frelling Wanted posters he has folded up in some pocket, and we'll be forced to listen to him for the next arn as he goes through them all!" The bar man turned to look at John. "He's not even notorious enough to have a Wanted Beacon… just paper posters!"

The man called Andar abruptly looked wounded.

"I'm… I'm sure I have a wanted beacon… lots of them… somewhere out there," he explained. 'I just haven't had time to go look for one yet. My work keeps me very busy, you know."

He looked from one person to the next, as if silently asking them to agree that somewhere out there in the Territories, there just had to be at least one beacon with his holo-image in it.

John turned to his wife, and gave her an exasperated look.

"This just gets better and better all the time," he muttered so that only she could hear.

"Okay…," John said, as he folded both hands before his chin, his elbows resting on top of the table they had taken over in the corner of the refreshment house. "What exactly did you do with Chiana?" he asked.

The other man sitting across from him looked genuinely puzzled.

"Chiana who?" Andar Murdough inquired a microt later with over politeness.

The human rolled his eyes, and was momentary glad for the bandit's sake that his wife had chosen to remain over by the bar and watch while he interviewed the strange man one-on-one.

"The Nebari girl you were here with about a quarter cycle ago," he clarified.

"Nebari girl?" Andar muttered to himself a few times lowly. "Nebari girl…oh! I remember exactly whom you're speaking of now! Lovely girl, a lovely girl. A little frelled up in the noggin for my taste, but a very lovely girl none-the-less."

Murdough concluded with a satisfied nod and a friendly smile at Crichton, but said no more.

"So…? What did you do with her?" John probed again.

"With who?" Andar asked again.

"Chiana."

"Who?"

"Chi…" John started to say again. "Urgh! The lovely girl," he changed it to, "What did you do with the lovely Nebari girl?"

"Oh… her. Nothing," Andar said. "She did at first say her name was Chiana I remember now, but then she decided she wanted to be called something else. Very unstable that one, she is." The man rambled on before John could stop him. "What was it she wanted to be called again? "Pi… Pi? It escapes me now. Something that starts with the letter 'P' it was."

"Pip," Crichton put in, exasperation plainly all over his face. "Now…"

"No, that wasn't it," Andar broke in annoyingly.

John drew himself up in his seat and drew a deep steadying breath.

"All right, that wasn't what she was calling herself," said John. "What's more important at the moment is…"

"Pixie!" the bandit suddenly barked happily.

"What?" asked the human.

"Pixie! She called herself, Pixie." Andar explained. "I know what you're thinking… Pixie is such an odd name for anyone to call themselves. I thought so myself when I first heard it… I mean it doesn't flow off the tongue as smoothly as something else would. And who could take a bandit named 'Pixie' seriously? My gracious goddess I can hear it now…" Andar's voice rose in pitch a few notes, "Oh! Oh! Help me! It's the bandit… Pixie!" He paused to look at John to see if he understood what he was getting at. For some reason he choose to take Crichton's wide-eyed look of dumfounded amazement as accord. "I can see you agree with me, it's a totally ridiculous name for a bandit," Murdough rambled on. "Now… 'Help, help! Its that scoundrel Andar Murdough!'… now that has a ring to it!"

"Andar," John tried to get in.

"Its all in the name," the bandit went on regardless.

"Andar…" the human tried again, this time snapping his fingers to go with the call.

"But you also have to understand and take into account the background of the name she chose. She told me Pixies were small mythical creatures from this tiny back-world ball of dirt that…"

"HEY! I know what Pixies are!" John interrupted bluntly before the odd man could further lose himself in his explanation. "I'm the one that told her what they were." _But I'm not the one who started calling her by that nickname,_ Crichton found himself thinking. _This doesn't look good if Pip is surrounding herself in memories of that crazy bastard._

"Well, there's no call to be rude," Andar said with a frown.

"Having fun, Crichton?" Aeryn asked from where she was leaning against the bar. The bartender was back safely behind his counter, washing his glasses with his dirty rag, all the while stealing wary glances at the big Sebacean guard standing by her side. It was obvious that Aeryn hadn't caught all of the conversation, and was gauging its progress mostly by the frustrated look on his face.

"Peachy, baby… just peachy," he called back to her."

He held up on finger just a few henta from the other man's eyes.

"Stay with me now, Fido," he said. "What did you do with Chi…er, the Pixie? Where did you take her, and what did you do."

Andar looked momentary defensive.

"Well nothing ungentlemanly if that's what you're getting at," said the strange man.

Crichton waved both hands over the tabletop to halt that train of thought.

"That's not what I'm asking! And I don't wanna know if you did," he again clarified. "The bartender said you were going to help her with something. I just want to know what that something was."

"Oh! That!" said Andar, as if enlightened. "Why didn't you just ask that in the first place?"

"I've been trying," John said with a slight hint of irritation. "So what was it?"

"Well, I really can't tell you," announced Andar matter-of-factly. "Thieves' honor and all that."

The astronaut looked stunned for a moment. He hadn't expected the discussion to take this bit of a bizarre turn.

"Look," he said a moment later after he recovered. "We don't want to get into your business. We just want to make sure she's okay. She's our friend."

Andar looked understanding, but shrugged his shoulders as if to say he was powerless to break some unwritten rule and tell him anything more.

John paused a moment to give the situation some thought. This Murdough fellow didn't exactly have all his oars in the water either obviously. There must be something he could do or say to make the bandit change his mind.

A moment later, Crichton though he'd hit upon something.

"We have a old saying where I came from to cover such matters," he said.

"Do tell," Andar replied with obvious interest as he slightly leaned forward toward the human.

"We say, 'that there's no honor among thieves."

The bandit processed the thought for a few moments.

"All right, you got me there," he surprised John by saying. It seemed the new rule was enough to void out the old rule in the man's mind. "Your friend Pixie wanted me to set her up with a gig as a _runner_."

John paused a moment, then said, "I'm guess that by 'runner', you're not talking about a person who actually get up and runs somewhere… like a pizza delivery guy."

Andar folded both his hands in front of him in a mimic of John's, and then just raised his eyebrow in an over-exaggerated manner as he smiled knowingly at the human.

"I was afraid of that," John muttered, without asking for the man to confirm his conclusion. "And what kind of runner job was this to be?"

Crichton half-expected the bandit to clam up again as he asked for more details. Instead, Andar leaned in even closer, his excitement more than evident on his handsome face.

"Its not just any _run_, my friend… it's _the_ run of all runs!" Murdough told him. "Five famous professionals with the best tech have died trying to complete it. Another four are in Peacekeeper prison at last count. I can't say that any of those got out with all their body parts intact before the PK's got them though. But still, the higher the risk, the bigger the pay off I always say. Our lovely Pixie is going for the golden Krerz egg-let, my friend. If she pulls off this run, she could name her price."

John felt his stomach drop out.

"Aeryn…" he meant to yell, but it only came out as a whisper.

"I would have gone after it myself," Andar was going on. "But as you can see, I'm stuck here for the moment with prior obligations. But the Pixie, now she has talent. You should have seen her during the fight that took place here. There must have been nine… no, ten! Ten brutes going at her. She beat them all… left them all broken on the floor she did. It was glorious!"

"AERYN!" John got out, his eyes still locked on a rambling Andar. This time it was a full yell.

"John? What is it?" his wife asked as she made it to his side. The big sergeant was there as well.

He quickly filled his spouse in on what had happened to their young friend.

The Sebacean woman frowned as she took it all in.

"You," the female soldier said to Andar. "Can you tell us where Chiana has gone? Do you have the star chart coordinates to that world?"

"Oh, you don't want to go there," Andar replied evenly.

"Why not?" Crichton asked.

"There's a civil war being fought on one of the system's core planets. Everything's a mess. They're stopping all the shipping going in and out of the blockade for inspections. Looking for deserters, contraband weapons, black markets items… it's really hard to make a dishonest credit there as a smuggler."

"I thought you were a 'bandit'? John asked.

"I am," Andar replied, with a look that said he thought John had less than normal smarts.

"Oh," the human said, choosing to overlook the look the highwayman was serving him with.

"I'm a smuggler as a hobby," Murdough added a microt later.

"Well, that just figures," John responded sourly while crossing both arms over his chest.

"Look! We don't care about making a dishonest credit or your hobbies," Aeryn said with some distaste.

"If our friend Pip's gotten herself into trouble, we have to go and get her out," John said. "We're going anyway," he added with a special no-nonsense glance at Murdough.

"Sir," Rickler broke in. "You have a tier full of Elite Guard and Hynerian Regulars. Plus a hanger bay half-filled with the best attack ships and heavy troop transports ever made. Even if the full authority of the Hynerian Throne and her Navy did not get you and Officer Sun where you need to go… we'll get you there through brute force if need be."

"Thank you, Sergeant," John said, genuinely touched.

"The honor is to serve… especially friends of the Dominar," the big man replied.

Crichton turned back to the bandit then.

"Can you tell us where Chiana went or not?" he asked firmly.

"I can tell you… but I won't," Andar told them, still with that strange smile of his.

Crichton groaned, not willing to have another battle of wits with the bandit over his thieves, honor… or whatever dreck he was going to spout off next.

Aeryn placed a hand on her pulse pistol, probably thinking she would just start shooting the self-proclaimed highwayman, starting at his feet and working her way up until he told her what they wanted to know.

"I wouldn't tell you," Andar said before anyone could make threats, or let alone make good on any threats. "But I'll show you."

John and Aeryn looked at each other, both sharing the same confusion and baffled looks.

"Excuse me?" Aeryn finally said.

"I'll show you," Andar Murdough repeated with a new smile, as he bounced on the tips of his toes. "I want you to take me with you."

Now the look Aeryn and John exchanged was one of unhappy apprehension. Then they both turned to regard Andar. In return, he quickly darted his gaze back and forth between them for several microts.

"Where you're going… you're going to need a talented bandit," he told them both.

John cover his eye with one had just as the man finished speaking. He'd heard a similar phrase before.

"That settles it," he said. "There's already no way… this is going to be good."

"What?" Andar asked innocently, still looking from John to Aeryn, and then back again repeatedly. "What'd I say?"


	11. Chapter 10

Kenrikk set down the case of canned vegetables where the head cook had told him he should. He wiped the thin layer of dust from his hands on his apron, and then swiped the half-rolled up shirtsleeve of his arm across his forehead. The cook indicated that that was the last case of goods he would need from the storehouse for the next round of meals, and thanked the half-Nebari teenager for his help.

Kenrikk grinned and tossed the old soldier a wave as he decided that it was time for a break and left the kitchens.

He flinched a can of cold Jaq'yum juice as he made it outside and cracked the tab. He downed half the container in one long swallow, letting the cool sugary liquid soothe his dry throat. Twenty cases of food stock was a lot to move by hand from the underground stores to the kitchens without any help. Had the entrance to the stores been wider, he could have used a cart. But like everything military, the doorway and passage was just barely wide enough for him to squeeze through with one case at a time.

Something about building the area to survive a mortar or artillery barrage without collapsing the soldiers had told him once.

He found himself standing in the sun on the main thoroughfare of the camp. The next tent over that happened to butt-up against the kitchens was the actual huge mess hall. The boy had not seen his sister in a while, he decided to go check and see what she had been up too while he had been attempting to squeeze his way through the hot, cramped, tunnels.

He finished the rest of his drink with a few more regular swallows, and dumped the empty into a recycle bin at the entrance to the mess.

He was greeted by several of the hall workers once inside, and a number of the troops who knew him. He suspected that most of the soldiers were friendly with him only because of his sister. More than one had asked for him to put in a "good word" about them with her.

He merely shook his head in amusement. They had no idea what they would be getting into with Jaleecee. Without doubt her sharp tongue would have sent most of them running for the safety of the minefields and enemy territory within an arn.

Still he was polite, and returned their greetings jovially. He knew better than to really count most of them as close friends.

He did smile as he saw Selyon behind the long counter, scooping out food from big trays onto soldiers' plates. The young woman noticed him from across the tent and smiled herself before waving with her free hand.

Kenrikk more than just liked the Sykaran woman, and was seriously thinking of asking her for permission to see her socially. Part of him balked at following such an obsolete custom, as he had yet to see any of the other couples on the base following any such rituals. But old habits die hard, and to be truthful, another part of him was worried about offending the young woman and ruining his chances by doing something improper.

He considered the best course of action would be to ask Jaleecee if she would intercede on his behalf as a female member of his family… to smooth the way, and to let Selyon he was only showing the proper respect before approaching her himself.

Even though he knew the teasing he would suffer at the hands of his younger sibling, he thought it would be worth it if Selyon assented to the proposal.

Kenrikk waved back, and the girl's smile grew larger for him. The half-Sebacean teenager grew encourage that perhaps things may work out as he hope with the woman.

He let Selyon go back to her work and scanned the rest of the tent, but saw no sign of his petite sibling. Even as small as she was, her constant movement around the tables of the hall would have been enough to drawn his attention to her immediately. He did however notice several men that he knew where assigned to long-range patrols sitting at tables, wolfing down large qualities of food. That meant the teams where back in from their tours. Even the mess hall food was better than the field rations the soldiers ate, so upon their return they always filled up.

It wouldn't be until tomorrow that these very same men and women would be rested enough to be complaining about the quality of the very same food they were bolting down now.

At the times the patrols came in, Jaleecee use to take food and tea out to the men as they sat around after unloading and performing light maintenance on equipment that had to be cared for after use. The business of war required that the care of your fighting equipment always came first, or it would fail when a emergency arose when it was needed the most.

She had felt sorry for the men knowing they were tired and hungry, and in most cases still had the task of taking care of their own personal gear afterwards, so she brought them a small bit of food and drink to tied them over.

She had ceased doing that for the most part after the incident with the Artillery Squad, and that first meeting with that twice goddess-cursed scout!

The young man involuntary rubbed at his throat as he recalled Korr's iron-grip. He could almost still feel the stunning impact as the scout slammed him into a main tent support post, which was actually more like a pillar, inside that very mess tent. He especially remembered the shock of realizing that his feet weren't touching the ground any longer as he hung from the man's fist.

He'd never personally known of any one man that strong, but anger did funny things to a person. And indeed Tessen Korr had plenty of reason to be angry with him at that particular moment.

After hearing the vile and malicious rumors circulating around the base about this scout sullying his sister's integrity, Kenrikk had only meant to save her face, and protect her virtue and reputation. He knew that he could never hope to defeat a soldier in a fair fight, but still honor must be satisfied and as the only male family member left alive... the duty fell to him.

His sister and he might have lost their home and lands, but they still had their family nobility, and by the Goddess, he would protect it no matter what the cost.

The next opportunity to confront the mercenary had been inside the mess tent where he spent most of his time working.

Seeing Korr in line waiting for his turn to fill his tray, the boy had steeled himself and approached the man, loudly calling his name and drawing everyone's attention. He might have preferred to confront Korr in a more private setting, but proper decorum demanded the matter be handled in public so that all might witness.

A gentleman of good breeding, who was in the right, did not hide such matters from public scrutiny.

He stood before Tessen Korr and announced him for the honorless cad he was, and then called him every foul name he could think of, while also calling into question the scout's parentage as well. All and all, for his first time confronting a scoundrel in the name of decency, Kenrikk was quite pleased with his off the cuff rebuke of the scout.

He then spat at the man's feet to show the appropriate contempt of Korr's actions, and then drew back his fist and struck the mercenary in the jaw as hard as he could.

His father would have been pleased with the way he handled the situation, he told himself. Even if he would now have to endure a thrashing from the mercenary as the end result, it would be worth it. Afterwards, he and Jaleecee would still be able to hold their heads up knowing the matter had been addressed respectably, regardless of the outcome… or what the rest of the camp continued to say.

They would know that Kenrikk, the son of Calran, was a man of honor and would stand his ground regardless of the consequences.

Even if part of him thought the practice from his own people and culture rather silly on the outside, especially given their current situation and surroundings, Kenrikk felt somehow gratified for having followed it. It gave him a sense of being somewhat in control of his life, and doing the right and familiar thing for the first time since escaping with only their lives and the clothes on their backs from their ruined homeworld.

He knew he would also have to speak with his sibling about discretion in her future personal affairs, not that he wanted to have that talk with her. Still, as eldest, it was a duty left to him… and he was not looking forward to that by any means given his sister's stubborn mind set.

During his brief tirade, the scout had only gazed at Kenrikk, as if he'd never seen the boy before… or perhaps he was wondering if the boy was possessed or had just simply lost his mind.

After the blow, Kenrikk stood his ground solidly, prepared to accept the beating he knew the older and more experienced man would give him in return. That was the price he would have to pay to restore his family honor, and at the moment he considered it a small one.

Korr obviously did not understand the intricacies of family honor common to Kenrikk's world, nor had he expected the punch the boy threw at him. His head rocked back slightly, but not as much as Kenrikk had hoped it might. He had been hoping to give a more respectable account of himself; after all, as the party with the grievance, the right to the first blow was his. But it was another small matter in the full scope of things, he had acted as befitted a man of his caste and that was what counted most importantly.

Several of the nearer soldiers laughed out loud at the spectacle, and made some jeering comments that were mostly lost on Kenrikk as he waited.

Tessen merely straightened his head and gazed at the boy with those dead eyes for an instant, then something dark flickered behind them and seemed to take over. Whatever was giving his eyes life… was the most terrifying thing the young boy had yet to see. He wasn't sure if it was a trick of the light or not, but he would have sworn to the Goddess that the edges of the scout's eyes tinted a strange fiery silver color.

Kenrikk had swallowed hard. In that one instant he knew he had made a grave mistake with attempting to follow a pride saving ritual that had absolutely no meaning on the world where he and his sister now found themselves.

A tiny voice in the back of his young mind told him that the scout was going to kill him. There wasn't an iota of mercy in the mercenary's features for a foolish boy who was just trying to protect his little sister's good character.

He never saw it happen, but the next thing he knew, Korr had him suspended in air, pinned to the huge pole that was once a tree trunk, and now supported the huge tent. As impossible as it sounded, the half-Nebari was positive that the hand locked around his throat could crush it if it's owner willed it.

For whatever reason the mercenary chose not to bring that much pressure to bear on his neck, and the boy counted himself lucky, thanking whatever god or goddess looked out for fools and imprudent young men.

Kenrikk had never really been this close to, or on the wrong side of, anyone dangerous before. At that moment he had no doubt he was staring into the face of a killer.

A killer that was well practiced at his trade, and very cold about utilizing it.

The cold vicious look in Korr's eyes lasted only for an instant, but that instant for the boy seemed to last a cycle. Just as suddenly as his features had changed, the chilling look slipped away, as if the man had gained control of himself once more.

"What is your malfunction, boy?" the scout had hissed.

"My sister…" Kenrikk managed to rasp out. "You've disgraced her!"

"What the frell are you talking about?" the tall man demanded. The scout slammed him into the pole once more in emphasis; hard enough that Kenrikk was sure his eyes rattled, but not so hard as to do serious damage to him.

Kenrikk attempt to form a clear answer, but it was difficult to reply very coherently with somebody cutting off what felt like half the supply of air to your windpipe, let alone having your brains jangled a couple of times on top of that. Luckily another soldier at one of the nearer tables spoke up and crudely cut to the chase for him instead.

"Come on, Korr," the woman said. "Everyone knows you're frelling the lad's little sister."

The scout turned his head to regard the soldier for a few microts. The amused smile died on her face with the cold hard look the mercenary gave her. Others at the same table seemed to decide that perhaps the situation wasn't as entertaining as they first though, and began to look elsewhere or go back to picking at the chow still on their plates.

The scout then turned back to give Kenrikk his attention again.

"Is that it, boy? Is that what you're on about?" he asked.

Despite his situation, Kenrikk found he was nearly incensed with the crass way the female soldier had describe the situation between the scout and his sister. Anyone with common decency could figure out that the scout had taken unjust advantage of her innocence. There was no need to sully it more by using such vulgarity!

But still… it described the problem clearly and to the point for the most part.

"Yes," the boy had managed to get out through his restricted airway.

Korr grit his teeth in what might have been a tired grimace if the scout still hadn't looked so angry, and then he suddenly let the boy down.

Kenrikk was glad to feel his feet touch the ground again. Korr removed his hand from his throat, only to snag the front of his tunic and use it to draw him nearer. The mercenary's grip felt as hard as steel.

"Listen, boy… because I am only going to tell you this once," Korr growled. "I am not now, nor will I ever be sharing my bed, or anything else, with your sister. She cares for my quarters and my things, and I pay her a fair wage in return. That is all. The next time someone tells you different, you send them to _me_ and _I_ will set them straight."

Kenrikk didn't say anything. He only gazed at the other man's face as he spoke. And oddly enough, he got the impression that the scout was actually sincere about what he'd said, despite his threatening manner.

"Do you understand that?" Korr asked, "Or shall I beat it into instead?"

Kenrikk shook his head "no" to the beating part, having lost his reserve for that by then, but said, "yes" out loud to the understanding part.

That seemed to satisfy the tall scout because he let go of the boy's shirt. However he wasn't done just yet.

"And if anyone else has any doubts about what I just said," he said to the audience inside the mess as a whole. "You can meet me outside to discuss it in full."

The boy looked around, but no one seemed inclined to take the scout up on his offer. The scout was not the biggest man Kenrikk had ever met; and there were plenty of soldiers in the tent who were at least twice the size of the mercenary. Still, not even any of them rose to the strange man's challenge. The half-Nebari lad doubted it was because the other soldiers respected Korr, it was more than obvious that the scout was just too much of a dangerous oddity for them to want to risk needlessly.

Kenrikk easily imagined that there would not be a single soul waiting for the tall man outside the mess tent either when he finally left.

"Get out of here before I change my mind," Korr told him more quietly, with a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder.

Kenrikk gladly withdraw, his last view of Tessen Korr the rest of the day was of the man returning to the chow line and getting himself a tray as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

He did catch holy hezmana from Jaleecee later that night inside their tiny quarters for, first – foolishly challenging the scout the way he had, then second – for sticking his nose into what she considered her personal business.

He consoled himself with the realization that women just did not understand the affairs of honor the way men did, and he let her say her piece in relative meekness… for over half-an-arn!

On the positive side of the incident, he hadn't heard another iniquitous rumor about his sister and Korr since then.

At least none that were muttered within range of his hearing.

The young man sighed as he came back to the present.

If the patrols were back in, that meant that Korr had returned as well… that is if he hadn't been killed in the fighting. Kenrikk considered that such a happening would have fueled the rumor mill the instant the patrols had set foot back on the firebase. Seeing he had heard nothing to that effect, he could only assume that the scout was still among the breathing.

If Jaleecee wasn't currently working in the mess tent that most likely meant that she had gone running to the scout's quarters as soon as she heard they were all back on the base.

It was un-ladylike behavior such as that, which had started that terrible anecdote in the first place.

He would have to speak about it with her again, not that she would listen to him any more than she had the first ten times… or the next ten after that.

He would also have to remind her that rumors of the scout's scandalous behavior with her were not the only stories worming their way through the camp about him now.

And that particular type of gossip is what really worried him the most.

He was beginning to believe it might have been better if Korr had beaten him that first time. It might have given Jaleecee pause, and she would have seen Tessen for the hired thug he really was. Then she might have decided for herself to wash her hands of that man, instead of developing this schoolgirl fascination with him.

He knew that it was in bad character for himself to take rumors about a person as actual fact. But this was a war zone, and the stories of Korr possibly being a spy or traitor were not going to be ignored for much longer. The talk was escalating, and one of these soldiers at some point would act upon it if only for the simple reason of long-term self-preservation.

Jaleecee was all he had left to him, and he didn't want her hurt when they finally came for the scout. He wasn't too positive that the mercenary was the type of man to give any thought what-so-ever to her safety before his own should the pulse bolts start flying.

He frowned thinking, the man would have to be an fool not to see or know what was happening around him. He worked in the mess hall and kitchens and he knew! Just as sure, Korr had to know just as well.

It only proved the man's low character that he continued to let an innocent such as his sister be placed in danger because of himself! If he had any honor, the scout would send Jaleecee away and not permit her to be anywhere near him when his enemies came for him.

The thought sent a shiver of fear for his sister up his spine and he decided to head over to the scout's bivouac and see if his younger sibling was there. If she were, he would make up an excuse about needing her back at the mess tent to assist with something.

The less time she spent around Tessen Korr, the better he would feel. Something told him that something very bad was going to happen around the mercenary very soon.

He headed that way toward his tent, pushing the nagging feeling that edge on panic that he might be too late even now, to the back of his mind.

He tried to remain calm and rational, but he still couldn't stop himself from going into a light jog to get there faster.

Kenrikk arrived at Korr's quarters a few moments later. He called out Jaleecee's name as he approached, trying his best to sound casual.

From the plain green tent that looked exactly like all the others around it, he got no answer. He went to the flap opening, and did his best to knock at the single pole that split the opening. It made an odd thudding sound as he called for her again.

Part of him feared that she was in there and did not hear him because she was in a lover's embrace with the vile man, that what they both claimed was false and that they were in fact lovers. He pushed the unpleasant reflection from his mind. If anything, Jaleecee was never a liar. If she said nothing was going on, then nothing was going on between them.

Still he had to be sure she wasn't inside, so he pushed the flap away and stuck his head inside.

"Hello?" he called out; still attempting to be as polite as possible when ones abode was only a flimsy tent, after all the scout might simply be in there alone and sleeping.

Emptiness greeted him, and he found he was glad. Part of him still had not shaken the dread that he might have witnessed something torrid between his sweet sister and that man upon entering.

Normally, he would have withdrawn once seeing the tent was unoccupied. But something roused his curiosity and he found himself stepping fully inside the man's quarters in spite of his better judgment. He had only been there twice in the past, and had never entered beyond the door flap.

His young eyes quickly adjusted to the tent's dimmer light, and Kenrikk first noticed that the scout had left some of his field gear stacked on the rough flooring by his bed. A worn pulse pistol gleaming with a light coat of oil laid on a small crate used as a makeshift table. Besides the weapon was a stack of towels and other personal care items, folded in a precise neat way that the half-Nebari lad easily recognized as his sister's handiwork.

A heavy footlocker-type trunk sat at the foot of the bed. It looked slightly bigger and heavier than most of the footlockers that the other troops were issued. But then again, mercenaries probably had to supply their own lockers for personal storage. The locking device on the trunk was certainly unlike any lock he had ever seen before.

He stepped even further in, and noted the odd long-barreled pulse rifle the scout used leaning against the back corner of the tent. Kenrikk really did not like guns, and he had seen more weapons than he cared to shake a stick at since starting work at the base. He had no interest in examining the mercenary's rifle any closer than he already was.

His inspection of the inside of Korr's tent didn't yield much more of interest. Nothing else that would give him an insight into the strange man, or why his sister was so obsessed with him… or point out to his inexperienced eyes that Korr was an enemy spy.

Kenrikk allowed himself a small snicker at the last thought. Tessen Korr would have to be a pretty poor excuse for a spy indeed if he had left something laying in plain view around his quarters that even a novice like himself could positively identify as enemy spy equipment.

The mercenary didn't even have the normal pinups of females or males that most of the other soldiers keep in their personal spaces. For certain, some of the more pornographic ones, especially the interspecies variety, they sometime twisted his stomach.

Not that he was against interspecies mingling at all. How could he be when he himself was a product of an interspecies bonding?

He just believed that love that was powerful enough to cross over and over-come interspecies intolerance should be cherished for the amazing feat it was, not posted up as some form of lust and obscenity.

He was just old-fashion that way. The thought made him think of Selyon, and he smiled to himself.

Kenrikk was glad that at least his sister didn't have to endure that distasteful form of personal space decorations while she worked here.

Next he found several nasty-looking bladed weapons sitting on top of the footlocker that he had missed the first time, obviously waiting for further care upon the scout's return to his home. Several of them he recognized right away, like the big bush knife all the troops used out here in the jungle terrain just a few metra from the base. The rest of the blades were unknown to him… and their designs give him chills as he imagined the damage they might do to flesh.

He turned away, getting ready to leave and look for his sibling elsewhere. Kenrikk had only just caught it out of the corner of his eye… it's color matched the rough blanket on the bed so closely that he had missed it, glancing over it the first few times.

What finally only just caught his eye was the familiar shape.

The boy returned to the bed to examine more closely had he found lying there. At first it seemed unreasonable that it would be there inside the scout's quarters at all. But he bent to look even closer and saw the small and very familiar designs in the box's carved top.

It was Jaleecee's Promise Box!

His sister had lost it almost a few weekens ago. She had searched for it franticly, but never finding it for her efforts. Its loss had left her somewhat distraught, but she had finally believed that she had merely misplaced it somewhere within their belongings, and that they would run across the box sooner or later – which neither she or he ever had, until now.

This Promise Box was one of the first things she had gotten for herself after that had barely escaped from the Scarrans invaders with their lives. She had lost her original one and everything in it when their home had been destroyed in the orbital bombings.

An old woman on one of the tramp transports they managed passage on had taken pity on the young girl and had given Jaleecee her own Promise Box, which was the only thing she herself had managed to save.

At first his sister had refused the gift, more from pride than anything else. But the old woman had insisted, saying that her bondmate was gone long before the Scarran attack, and that her life was just about over at her age. She'd had the Promise Box, which she claimed her father had made, since she was a young girl. She said she had no daughter herself, and now believed that the box should be passed on and used once again for what it was meant for, by someone with a future to look forward to. The old woman told them it was the best way to see that their world would live on.

In the end, Jaleecee had cried as she accepted the gift.

A Promise Box was simply a tradition that girls and women on his world had followed. No one could surely say when or who started it, but during the course of their lives a girl would save little odd-and-ends of things, piece of whatever was important in their lives. The box could contain anything from images of loved ones, to buttons or togs from a favorite dress, to slips of paper with poetry written on them, to pretty stones or pieces of glass.

Each box reflected the personality of its owner, and no two were exactly alike of course. They were kept private for the most part, possibly shared with a favorite sister or female friend. Kenrikk wouldn't really know for himself, and the only way he would have seen what was in a woman's Promise Box was on his bonding night. When his Bondmate would have shown him what was in hers, and explained the meaning of what each object inside meant to her.

It was considered the _final _step of your courtship and _first_ step to truly getting to know the woman you would spent the rest of your days with.

Once children came along, a mother might share her Promise Box with her daughters. By then the collection of items would have grown beyond what was in there on her bonding day.

Kenrikk scowled as he glared at the craved wooden box sitting there in plain view on the bunk. Jaleecee never would have given that away… not even to the scout!

"Bastard!" the half-Nebari growled.

Korr must have stolen it from his sister! He truly was a cad of the lowest order.

His rage built as he reached down and seized the box from the top of the bed. It was about the size of a standard printed book, and possibly about as deep as the width of the palm of Kenrikk's hand. The first thing he noticed was that it was oddly heavy for its size.

Jaleecee couldn't have possibly filled it all ready?

Something shifted as he lifted it up to the level of his chest, and he heard a clear "ping" sound from inside the sachet. The boy immediately concluded that Korr was using his sister's keepsake to store something in, probably cleaning items for his weapons knowing a soldier's mentality.

Kenrikk would never knowingly peek into his sister's Promise Box, but he decided to empty the contents on to the scout's bunk in contempt for his thievery, seeing whatever was inside probably weren't hers to begin with any longer. He hoped there was something in there that would open up and make a huge mess of the man's sleeping platform.

That would be a fitting punishment!

He pictured his sister's joy at him finding her Promise Box and returning it to her, empty or not. Though he was sure he'd have a hard time convincing her of where he had finally located it.

He opened the lid to do just as he planned… only a sudden loud roar filled his ears and a brilliant white light blinded him.

Then there was nothing.


	12. Chapter 11

Despite her current state of anger with Tessen Korr, Jaleecee found that she was enjoying her first private walk with the handsome young Corporal. He was very polite and respectful, and once he relaxed a little in her company, she found his easy smile very appealing. It was even hard for her to think of this boy as a soldier after only a few microns of easy conversation.

She was glad that he didn't seem to take offense when she finally withdrew her arm from his.

It had been a spur of the moment action, driven by an unflattering whim of spite when she turned and saw Korr looking at them from the front of the mess tent.

She had barely known the soldier, and it was much too soon for even that slight intimate contact between them.

Haze didn't seem to notice her withdrawal into proper decorum; he was much too involved in their conversation… or perhaps just too well mannered to mention it.

He seemed surprised to learn that she also grew up on a farm, though her father's estate was much larger than the one he had describe growing up on. Still, they had much in common to talk about on that account.

She asked if he was going to be a soldier forever. And he told her of his plans and desires. At first he had wanted more than anything to get away from life on a small farm, that he at first only saw becoming a soldier as just a stepping stone to do more with his life.

Now that he had seen so much of the darker side of war, he was thinking that life as a simple farmer might not be so bad after all. But first before settling down, he wanted to travel a little and see other worlds and met other people… without a rifle in his hands.

He was surprised to find himself admitting to her, that he was hoping to find a woman who wanted the same thing.

Jaleecee surprised him by saying that it sounded to her like he had planned a good life for himself and some lucky woman. Then she smiled, and added jokingly except for the going to war part.

Haze was taken off guard, and laughed at her comment.

Jaleecee found that she like his laugh as well; it was strong and warm at the same time. Whenever Korr laughed, it was cold and devoid of true humor, and usually in contempt of something. Never once had she heard a hint of joy in the scout's laughter.

They strolled to the end of the camp, furthest from the direction of the enemy of course, coming to a field with yellow and red flowers blooming there. Fortunately, the terrain was in an awkward enough place that it hadn't been torn up by ground vehicles or landing transports.

"This is my favorite place to come and think," Jaleecee told him absently. "Its such a nice place… untouched by this ugly war."

Haze glanced at her with a bit of surprise, and the nodded in agreement. "It's mine too. When I need a place to think," he said. "Just over a hundred metra from here, its all rotting jungle. You take a jump ship in and a jump ship out. This place though, it reminds me of home."

"The way you describe it, your home must be a beautiful place," said the girl. "It must be… peaceful."

"Yes… sometimes I use to think too peaceful. Now look where I am."

He grinned at her, and she grinned back in a shy manner.

"Maybe some day I could see your home. There are a lot of times I wish to be anywhere but here."

"Maybe one day you will," he replied, trying to keep any excitement or hope from his tone. It would not do to seem too pushy on their first walk. "Why do you stay here then," he asked instead.

"This is as far as the credits Kenrikk and I managed to gather could take us that had any work we could do available to us," Jaleecee explained. "We've been saving to get enough for passage aboard another ship out of system. As soon as we learn of some place better where we can get more work to support ourselves… and start our lives over. I think I might like another farm again," she added wishfully.

Haze considered her story seriously, trying not to be to over thrilled about her idle confession… and not trying to read too much of anything into it.

"Sounds scary… and exciting at the same time," he finally said. "Maybe I'll resign my commission, muster my pay, and go with you…ah, both of you I mean. I'd throw in with the both of you."

He lightly blushed as he corrected himself.

Jaleecee found it charming, and it warmed her to the young man.

"Perhaps you will, Corporal Haze," she said with just enough formality not to be giving him any promises, false or otherwise… just yet.

She graced him with another smile though, so he'd know that she hadn't meant the comment in a harsh way… just a proper ladylike one.

"I do want to see something of the Territories," he added, possibly more for himself than for her. "I'll probably sit here making up excuses till I die of old age if I don't take the first opportunity I get."

"That would be unfortunate," she countered; she slid her hands behind her back and openly regarded him in a daring way. Being ladylike was one thing, but you had to balance it with a little fun when you were in private, especially in the company of a handsome young soldier. "So, what would you do with yourself if you left here, Mr. Haze?" she asked. "How would you support your adventures?"

Haze thought a minute, and then answered with a straight face.

"Mercenary?"

As soon as he said the word, he regretted it. She had seemed reluctant and irritated when he had brought up Korr earlier in their discussion. He hadn't wanted to ruin his chance with the pretty girl now by saying something stupid.

What was it that AcRooks had said about putting his combat boot in his mouth?

Jaleecee frowned deeply, and his stomach dropped out from under him. She twisted her full black satiny lips for a moment and then said, "No. I can believe you as a soldier, obviously… but not as a mercenary. Fighting for the sake of fighting or for credits, I don't believe is your style."

"Then what then?" he asked, very relieved that the girl hadn't berated him for his slip up and was still willing to go on with their diversion.

"Pirate," the girl replied right away, also with a straight face.

"Pirate?"

"Yes, Pirate."

"Why a Pirate?" he asked in bewilderment. He was confused, but he was also enjoying the odd game with her.

"You seem more the swashing buckling type of man to me," she told him.

"Really?"

"Really."

Haze paused a second to think it over. "And how would I go about becoming a pirate exactly?" he queried.

"Oh… that would be the easy part," she explained. "We would take over the transport ship we were on, and then you would just follow me and do every thing I said to."

"Why?" he asked.

"Because I would be the Captain," she said. "You would be my first mate."

"You're the Captain?"

"Correct."

"And I would be your first mate?"

"Uh huh."

He furrowed his brow in thought again.

"So what about your brother then?" he asked.

"He would wash the dishes," she deadpanned again.

It took him a moment for it all to sink in, the strange mental picture formed in his mind and then he started laughing.

The girl broke into a huge grin, and her laughter joined his. Haze found her gaiety and the moment magical.

They finally clamed down a few microts later, and found they had nothing to say for the moment. They just stared at each other, and found that they had reached a casual comfort zone, each within the other.

Haze reached for her hand without a thought, and she let him take it.

He was about to tell her how beautiful and wonderful he thought she was, but before he could form the words an explosion shook the ground under them.

Jaleecee grasped in surprise, and automatically clutched at his hand tightly.

"_Mortar!"_ Haze thought to himself, and he instinctively drew the girl to him, placing his body between her and the displacement of air he felt from the explosion, and then he took them both toward the ground in a protective crouch.

When no shrapnel tore through his back a few microts later, he turned to look over his shoulder to see the black cloud rising up from the middle of the base. Only when he was sure that there was no telltale whistling of further incoming rounds did he let them both stand once more, and the girl pull away from him enough that she could view the sight also.

His next thought as he scanned the scene somewhat below them was that there was an accident in one of the ammo dumps, but the debris cloud was in the wrong area for that premise.

The girl with him however had an excellent sense of direction for places she knew or lived in.

"That's in the quarter's section," she said, and the young soldier knew she was right. His own bivouac was in that area he realized now as he oriented himself.

Jaleecee's grayish skin suddenly drained to a ghostly white as a new and terrible thought hit her.

"Korr!" she cried, and then she gathered up her skirt and started to bolt that way, only to have Haze grab her arm and draw her up short.

"You can't go down there," he warned her. "That was exploded ordinance. There maybe more down there. Wait until the demo teams get a chance to go in and clear the area!"

She spun to look at him with desperation on her pretty face.

"That's Tessen's tent! I know it!" she exclaimed. "Kenrikk said they might do something to him. We have to go! He might be hurt down there!"

Haze didn't want to tell her that a explosion that size would have killed anyone with in a fifteen drenc radius of the blast. But the look on the girl's face made it near impossible to refuse her.

"All right," he gave in. "But you stay close to me and do exactly as I say."

Jaleecee nodded and didn't contest his conditions. She started moving down toward the midst of the base, she was so shaky as she tried to pass him that Haze had to take her hand to keep her from hurrying, and lead her for fear she might trip and fall while negotiating the rough trail way in her long skirts.

Once he had realized where the explosion had taken place, he had immediately had the same thought as the girl. Someone had finally decided to remove the scout as a possible threat to the unit's safety.

Whatever was left to find down there, wouldn't be pleasant.

And he wondered how he was going to be able to keep Jaleecee from insisting on viewing it?

For the moment, he concentrated on picking the safest footing to lead the girl back down to the main body of the base. Her small hand in his would have given him the largest of thrills at any other time, however for the moment it just simply felt right, and he would do his best to protect her from whatever tragedy awaited them.

If want they suspected had come to pass, the pretty young girl was going to need the support of a kind shoulder and a caring ear. Not the way he would have hoped their first time together to end, but life was rarely fair or predictable.

He would do whatever he could to look after Jaleecee if Korr was dead. He had no illusions of how the girl felt for him. He only hoped in time, after the girl healed, that she would see how he felt about her and learned to rejoice in it… and maybe, she find that she could feel the same about him.

Regardless, he was determined to be there for her in any way she needed.

In this… he had already made up his mind. She was already that special to him.

Tessen Korr was stilling sitting inside the huge mess tent, sharing a table with no one, as he idly sipped at what was originally a mug of hot Terza tea that had passed through the lukewarm stage and was well on its way to becoming cold.

He had finished his usual bland meal, and was now considering whatever details he needed to see to before leaving this world. Turning in his commission as a mercenary scout would not be much of a problem and was relatively easy. However, if it did turn into one, he would just leave without collecting the current pay that was owed to him.

True, he could use the credits for his reserve, but they weren't really going to matter much one way or the other in his plans. He had meant to give most of what was owed to him for this tour to the girl and her brother anyway.

If he had to take that course of action, he could always use something from the funds currently stored aboard the Wraith for that purpose… it would only take an arn at the most to see to the transaction with the quartermaster at the spaceport. As camp employees, the children had to have an account there as well as he did. Transferring funds into it should not be difficult.

Korr grimaced at the bother. A smart person would just let the brats fend for themselves. Its not like he owned them anything, and in fact… they both had boarder on the annoying most of the time.

Still, he could not just abandon them without leaving something. Somewhere along the line, he'd taken to feeling responsible for them, or at least for Jaleecee in some way… despite what he kept telling himself.

Just like once… a Nebari girl had taken compassion and tried to help him. She had taken responsibility and did all that she was capable of for him.

A low growl escaped him with the thought.

_And looked how that moment of pity had worked out for her_, the specter in his psyche asked. The laughter that followed tried to rip his mind apart, but it was still too weak.

The mercenary's lips drew tight. The failure had not been hers; it had been his and his alone!

That did not excuse him from doing what he could for the young girl and her sibling. The debt he owned Chiana had to be paid to someone else in return, she had once decreed so herself.

She had told him at one point to '_pass it on'_.

She had said the cryptic words with a secret knowing smile, and the Shrike hadn't understood what she was getting at back then. Now after his short life of contemptible experiences, he had a better understanding of what she was trying to tell him. It was a shame he hadn't been able to truly comprehend the small Nebari's wisdom back then.

What he would do for those children was far less than what the Nebari girl had tried to do for him, but it was the best he had to offer Jaleecee and her brother… so it would have to be enough.

Decided on that course of action, Korr also made a mental note to check his back-up store on Pa'Looua root aboard his ship once he returned. It would not do to run out when he needed his wits about him.

The next few weekens, if not the next quarter cycle itself, was going to require some very careful planning and timing if he wished to accomplish the goals he was setting for himself.

He was just about to wave a server over to warm-up his tea when the shock of an explosion rocked the tent.

Several tables and chairs ringing the outer perimeter of the mess tent where blown over, and a thick dust cloud covered the parade ground as far as the scout could see when he stood up from where the blast had knocked him from his seat. Around him other personal were picking themselves up, dusting off, and asking if they were under attack.

Numerous other voices around the camp where calling warnings of an incoming artillery barrage or a mortar attack. It quickly became apparent that nothing else was screaming its way into the base, so calls next went out for the fire brigades.

Groups of armed men and women ran passed, all heading in different directions depending on where their alert posts were located.

Korr went with the flow of other camp personal that didn't have alert positions to cover, as they exited the mess to see what had happened. Most of the initial blast cloud was quickly fading, leaving only the heavy fog of the blast center to mark the exact location of the disaster.

Quickly somebody identified the area as quarters, and people began running in that direction to help. Some instinct trigger within the scout making him pause for a microt, and a gnawing feeling of dread worked at his stomach.

A voice that wasn't the ghost told him that this incident was something far worse than just an accident.

As a Syndicate Enforcer, all his senses had not only been augmented, but also honed to a fine edge. Since his escape, he'd learned to listen to his instincts when they warned him that something was seriously wrong.

Just as they were now!

He began running in that direction also, not caring if anyone noticed that he was moving much faster than anyone else could.

Tessen Korr didn't have to rely on directions from others to get to the scene; it was a path he knew well and his odd instincts would have taken him there regardless it seemed.

He arrived at the place his bivouac had stood, only to find a shallow crater in its place. The tent was just a pile of burned and tore material, scattered all around in flaming pieces. Several other nearby tents where scorched and blown down as well.

His bunk was a scrap pile of kindling, as was some wooden crates he'd used as tables. His locker stood slightly off to one side, scorched and dented also but intact for the most part… which is what he expected from the armored locker. His extra weapons and gear would have still been well protected from even a much bigger blast.

The weapons he had been using, and had left on his bunk or tables, where going to be trashed.

A number of personal where gathered around something to one side of where his quarters had been, and Korr knew that there should not have been anyone within his tent, seeing he had witnessed the girl on a walk with the young Corporal at the other end of the base just a short time ago. Thus he assumed a passer-by might have been slightly wounded in the explosion.

His next thought as he approached the scene was what had caused the blast? As he kept no explosive ordinance within his quarters at any time. He doubted that even a chakan cartridge cooking off within a pistol or rifle would cause that big of a detonation.

Just as he reached the site, somebody within the gathered group screamed for a med-tech. The tone alarmed the scout, and he turned his attention that way. Through the moving legs of the personal helping whoever was down, Tessen caught a glimpse of a familiar blue vest and a white apron. The garb that was wore by most of the workers in the mess hall!

A cold hand with fingers of ice suddenly gripped his spine.

Korr pushed his way passed some of the on-lookers and those offering advise and help from the side, not caring who he bodily shoved out of his way.

In the center of the mass, Jaleecee's brother lay burnt and lifeless, staring up at the sky with unblinking eyes as soldiers tried to perform first-aid on him. A pair of med-techs arrived with field packs and those attempting to help the boy moved aside to allow them access.

In that brief glance, Korr saw gapping wounds around the young man's torso and that both his arms were gone from somewhere around the elbows on down.

He seen enough in his life, both as a mercenary and an Enforcer, to know the lad was far beyond all help. He had not survived passed the moment of detonation.

Korr was momentary numb, he clenched his fists, not sure if he was angry with himself for not being able to feel something more at that moment, or at his total helplessness.

He was vaguely aware of the looks that he was getting from those that stood nearby. They all knew whose quarters had been destroyed in the explosion. They almost all knew of the altercations between the boy and himself, so it was only natural that they suspected or blamed him for the young man's death.

Tessen didn't care at the moment what they thought.

There was no way such an accident could have happened. He didn't even keep so much as a single grenade within his personal space. Any ordinance like that which was left after a patrol he turned in to the armory like everyone else.

He didn't need it. If he wanted an explosive or explosive device, he could easily make one from components found all over the camp… and it would be of a better design than a simple grenade.

He had nothing inside his tent that could possibly have done this to the boy!

A quick thought that perhaps Kenrikk was attempting to place a device within his quarters and that it had detonated prematurely, killing himself instead, passed though the scout's mind. He immediately discarded it; the boy would not take a chance on killing his own sister by mistake, as she was most likely to have been in his tent at any given time. He doubted that Kenrikk could have known about the fallout between his sister and himself, and planned something this quickly. Beside, the young man had no talent of such things, as Korr had witnessed times when the boy had trouble lighting the chemical heaters under the serving trays inside the mess hall. Nor would he have used a device created by someone else for the very same reason that it might catch his sister.

Thus, somebody else had to have placed something there.

His lips drew thin, almost disappearing in a burning rage at the thought.

He was just about to turn from the tragic scene to investigate the remains of his bivouac closer for clues, when another tragedy landed on his front door step.

"Korr!" a young female voice cried over the din of people at the site. Tessen turned, to see Jaleecee racing up the path toward him. The Corporal following close behind her as she ran.

"Goddess!" the scout muttered in true horror, the girl didn't need to see this! He changed directions to head the girl off before she reached the scene.

"Korr!" she cried again as she neared him, there were tears on her cheeks but she smiled greatly as she met him and threw her arms around his middle.

It was then that Tessen realized that the girl had been worried that he had been hurt or killed in the blast. She had no clue as to the fate of her brother!

She hugged him tightly for a few microts, and then pulled away so she could look up at him again to reassure herself that he was indeed unscathed.

He reached down to grab her by both shoulders, afraid that she might try to get passed him for some reason. He found himself faltering as he looked down to her. He had seen more death than anyone could know, he had been the cause of countless deaths himself… and he found himself not knowing how he was going to break the news to her.

Taking his inability to speak as a sign that he was glad to see her also, Jaleecee threw her arms around his waist again instead, hugging him tightly to her once more for a moment before pulling away to return her gaze to him.

"I was so afraid that something happened to you!" she said breathlessly. "Thank the Goddess you weren't hurt… or worse. We had parted so badly, and I shutter to think that out last words to each other might have been…"

Tessen looked down at her, still keeping a firm hold on her slim shoulders.

"Jaleecee…" he interrupted, but could go no further.

He had killed and murdered countless people truly, but he still could find no way to tell this one girl that her brother was gone, that she was now alone in the universe.

She must have read the uncharacteristic pain in his eyes, because her relieved smile faded and a look of growing dread too its place. Then she realized that he had actually used her given name, and her trepidation doubled in a leap.

"Tessen? What's wrong?" she asked in growing nervousness. "Are you not well? You look fine!"

Korr could only shake his head.

"Its… not me," he finally said.

Jaleecee's eyes grew round and large in horror. There could only be one other person important enough to her to give Korr such pause.

"No…" she said, quietly at first. Then, "No… No! NO! KENRIKK! KENRIKK!" she screamed and tried to force her way passed Korr. "Let me go!" she screamed at him while beating at his upper arms when he wouldn't release her.

"You don't want to see this," Tessen told her over and over again, trying to get through her grief. "He's gone! There is nothing you can do."

"No!" the girl shrieked to the heavens. "No! NO! This can't be!"

Korr held the girl, accepting the beating her small fists gave him, as if he deserved it as surely as if he killed the boy himself. With each blow he silently promised the girl he would avenge her brother if he found a way. That… he knew he could do for her.

At the same time he was ashamed with himself that he couldn't feel more for her.

If anything, it drove home that fact of exactly how inhuman the Syndicate had made him.

He held her until she exhausted herself trying to break free, until she collapsed against him to weep against his chest.

The mercenary surprised himself by folding his arms around the shuttering girl, even as he cursed himself for the hollow gesture he knew it was. He cursed for not feeling as he thought he should have about the boy's death, and the young girl's anguish. It was proof that some important part of him was dead… and would never be coming back.

The voice in his head chortled with mirth at the catastrophe, but he ignored it, pushing it back into its mental jail cell. He would not let it feed on the girl's sorrow.

Jaleecee was lost in a world of pain, with not a clue as to what was going through his mind as she sought what comfort she could in his arms. She continued sobbing heavily against him.

Korr spared a moment to glance up and find Haze standing helplessly just a few drenc away. Their eyes locked for the barest instant, and Korr read a hint of accusation in the young man's gaze, just before the younger man looked away.

The young soldier's face went grim as he watched the med team finish packing Kenrikk's body into a body bag, and then hurry it away from the scene. Someone had probably pointed out to the teams that the boy's sister was present, and they did their best to remove the shattered remains before she could view what was left of him.

Korr held the girl till most of the weeping was done for the moment, Jaleecee quieted as the numbness of shock finally set in. Tessen looked again at the young Corporal standing near them.

"Come here," the scout commanded. His normally bland voice, uncharacteristically tight at the moment

Despite Haze's obvious distrust, he came forward with a questioning look.

"Take her," Korr told him. "Get her out of here and get something to cover her with." He pushed the girl into the younger man's care. "Do _not_ leave her alone."

"I'll get a med-tech to stop by and give her something," Haze said. His eyes grieved for the girl, though they still held a strong hint of mistrust when they locked on the scout.

Korr only nodded, not caring what the soldier thought of him as long as he saw to the girl's needs. He himself had something he needed to look into before the base's policing force began to sift through the remnants of his quarters, looking for leads into the cause, and disturbed anything that might tell the mercenary something important.

He paused only for a few microts to watch Jaleecee meekly allow Haze to steer her away from the scene and toward the center of the base. It was almost as if the girl hadn't even realized she'd been given over into the care of the younger man.

Tessen turned away, and walked into the remains of his tent. He examined several items of wrecked clothing, finding nothing salvageable and no evidence within them. He came across what was left of his sniper rifle, and wrote that off as well. The lost of that weapon didn't concern him overly much, as there was another just like it in the Wraith's weapon locker.

The Syndicate had equipped its ships quite well in that regard.

He used the blast burns to calculate the center of detonation, and discovered it was very near if not on top of his rack. Again, he had nothing stored that could have exploded under his bunk, so it had to be something else.

He tested the air, and smelt the usual odors consistent with the aftermath of a blast. He shifted his senses, allowing the microbe augmentation to take over and enhancing his normal abilities. Underneath the burnt smell, he detected something else, something familiar to him.

His grimace grew deeper, as he bent to examine the flooring at ground zero. He worked his fingers into the soot and ash remaining there, until his senses told him he'd found what he was looking for. He brought his hand up; his fingertips were coated with fine dark grit.

He rolled the material around for a few microts, feeling its consistency on his now hypersensitive pads. He finally touched the grit to the tip of his tongue, and experienced the bitter tang he expected.

He spat the ash back onto the ground, and his dark grimace grew into a true scowl.

Korr rose back to his feet satisfied and secure in his new knowledge, knowledge that he would only keep to himself.

He had been responsible for the boy's death after all.


End file.
